Moving On
by Helen Pattskyn
Summary: AU After the Atmos incident post Exit Wounds , Jack realizes he needs to hire a medic who can keep up with them in the field. The question for Chase isn't whether he wants the job, it's will Alison follow her heart, and him, to Wales... or not.
1. Prologue

**Moving On**

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_**Drama / Sci-Fi / Romance**_

_**Rated M**__ for mature themes, sexual situations (mostly Jack/Ianto because I enjoy writing them), and language. _

_And a great big huge thank you to my beta reader for making this a better story!_

_**Who is Liz?** (**edit added 22 May, 2008)** For anyone who hasn't read my previous work or been watching Doctor Who as long as I have, Liz Shaw is a former companion of the Doctor's. I brought her in for my previous fic **A New Day**; but it isn't necessary to read that before this. I just wanted to clear that up because it has confused a few people. _

_**Synopsis:**_

_After the Atmos incident, Jack realizes that Liz is right and he needs to hire someone young enough to keep up Torchwood... he arrives just in time to help them solve a case that looks suspiciously like spontaneous human combustion. _

_House/Torchwood Crossover (with Doctor Who references galore, although truthfully, I think of them as practically the same show, with so much crossover between cast and crew.) _

**_A/N:_**

_Prior knowledge of House isn't strictly necessary, although some has been included in the notes, mostly for anyone who wants to put faces to names (google images is a great resource.) _

_Crossovers are far and away my favourite kind of fanfiction. We can do things here that are impractical or even impossible to do on screen, so why not take advantage of that and have as much extra fun as possible? ;-) This idea started with the question "Who could Jack hire to fill the vacancies in the wake of Exit Wounds…?"_

_**Setting:**_

_Doctor Who: __**Poison in the Sky **__(contains only minor spoilers), Torchwood: post __**Exit Wounds**__ (and post my own stories __**Short Stories **__and __**A New Day**__.) House: post __**Wilson's Heart **__(by a couple of months, time to give everyone a chance to recover. May contain spoilers in later chapters, but none here.) _

_**House**__: Very briefly, for anyone interested, __**House**__ is an American medical drama starring Hugh Laurie in the title role. The cast also includes Australian actor Jesse Spencer as Robert Chase, Jennifer Morrison as Allison Chase, Omar Epps as Eric Foreman, Lisa Edelstein as Lisa Cuddy, Robert Sean Leonard as James Wilson and Anne Dudek as Amber Volakis (aka "Cutthroat Bitch"). In supporting roles are Peter Jacobson as Dr. Chris Taub, Kal Penn as Dr. Lawrence Kutner and Olivia Wilde as "13," (aka Dr. Remy Hadley) who along with Foreman make up House's current team of diagnostic ducklings. The majority of these characters are background figures in this piece. _

_**The usual disclaimers apply**__. I don't own any of it, just borrowing some of the characters for my own amusement (and possibly the amusement of others.) I promise to put them back where I found them and they won't be any the worse for wear… well… Jack may have a few teeth marks, but they'll heal… _

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**Prologue: The Day the Earth Stood Still**

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**Princeton, New Jersey (USA): **

"Everyone, please, don't panic! Just get down to the ER and help. I'm sure we'll have some news soon…_**House**__!"_ Lisa Cuddy's voice became loud enough for the whole floor to hear when she spotted House trying to duck around a corner. Since she had everyone's attention anyway, she stopped trying to be subtle in the hopes of avoiding further panic, and raised her voice. "Unless you're treating a critical injury, I need all medical staff to report to the ER immediately. Thank you."

Outside the hospital windows, white gas continued to drift up from the street below. It had become so thick one could hardly see the sky any more. Whispered words like 'terrorist attack' and '9/11 all over again' floated through the hallway, growing louder by the moment.

"Come on people, staring at it won't make it go away and it won't give us any answers either. As soon as I hear something, I'll let you know." Cuddy pulled a group of staff and patients away from the windows. Telling the former to get back to work and asking the latter to please return to their rooms, trying to assure them that they were safe; they just needed to clear the halls. "We're all scared," she added. "But we just have to stay calm and everything will be all right."

She'd called in every off-duty security guard they had, but no one could get in so she had clerical staff, orderlies and janitors escorting patients back to rooms and trying to keep them there without creating any more alarm than the conditions outside were already causing. So far no one from the FEMA or the CDC had returned her calls, but according to the last news report she'd seen, the situation was world-wide.

Cuddy spotted House's team filing out of his office. She snagged Eric Foreman's arm as he passed, "Where is he?"

"Staring out the window."

"I don't have time for this… HOUSE!"

"What the Hell is going on out there?" His voice was calm, _too calm._

"I don't know, but would you _please_ get down to the ER? I need every pair of hands I've got down there." Much to her surprise, he complied with the request without further comment. _Shit. _House was doing what he was told; it really must be the end of the world.

She walked over and looked out the window herself. Someone on the news had said it was like a plague of Biblical proportions and looking at it, it was easy to believe…Cuddy shook herself and continued making her way through the hospital, getting the ER the help they needed, getting patients back to bed and trying to convince herself that it would be all right.

…………………………………………

Chase spotted Foreman and flagged him over to the elderly patient he'd just gotten into a chair; he would have liked to have her lying down, but there wasn't so much as stretcher available, and people were still wandering in. "Foreman!" he called when the other doctor didn't immediately come over.

"Yeah? What d'you have?"

"She needs oxygen and a bed – a stretcher – a desk – it doesn't matter, just something. Then get anyone who isn't keeling over to move into the cafeteria. I'll be back in a minute."

"What're you doing?"

Chase fished his pager back out of his pocket; it had gone off five minutes ago, its screen flashing with a number he'd hoped he'd never see again.

"Chase?"

"I have to make a call."

"We're in the middle of a…" But Chase was already on his way over to the nurse's station, helping himself to the phone despite the objection of several other staff members. Cuddy had issued a 'do not use the phone' order over an hour ago; _everyone _had someone they wanted to call, but the hospital was already in a state of pandemonium as it was without everyone jockeying for a few minutes on the phone.

"Are you out of your mind?" Foreman hissed in an angry tone at Chase's elbow, having gotten a nurse to find a cot for the patient Chase handed off.

"No more so than the next guy. Why?" Chase punched in the last number displayed on his pager and then erased it.

"If Cuddy catches you on the phone…"

Chase held up his hand to silence the man next to him and began speaking into the receiver, "Chase, Robert, Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital…that's in New Jersey… yes, the United States. Yes… hang on…" He grabbed a pen out of a nurse's hand and turned over a form to write on. "Yeah, all right. Got it. Copy that…_whatever_. Thank you, Sergeant."

_Sergeant?_ Foreman scowled. "What's going on?"

Chase ignored him, literally pushing the same nurse he'd taken the pen from away from the computer, completely ignoring her objections.

"What the Hell is going on here?" Cuddy wasn't even a foot out of the elevator, her pager in one hand; one of the nurses had clearly paged her to report Chase's behavior.

"Dr. Cuddy, good, glad you're here," Chase didn't even look up from the computer screen where he was typing a lengthy web address.

"This isn't the best time to be surfing the internet for porn," came a familiar snarky voice; House leaned over the desk to peer at the screen.

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" Chase shot right back without missing a keystroke. He pocketed the web address before typing in his name and password, neither of which showed up as anything but asterisks on the screen.

"I'm assuming you've got an explanation?" Cuddy maneuvered to stand behind him, not looking like she was going to accept anything he had to say for himself.

"Yup… Here. This is the best chemical breakdown we have of that gas out there."

Suddenly the room got very quiet. Everyone was staring at the television, which had been tuned to WBZN News all day. "The United Nations has issued a worldwide directive…" announced the anchor woman.

"They call this a bloody heads up?" Chase muttered, bringing Cuddy's attention back to the screen. "Here. Mostly Co2, some hydrocarbons, some No2. And you need to get people to _stop_ saying it's a terrorist attack."

"So what is it?" asked Foreman.

"Industrial accident," Chase repeated the line he'd been given over the phone. He wasn't sure anyone was going to actually believe it, but if enough doctors told enough patients that it was an industrial fuck-up…

"Who were you just on the phone with?" Cuddy wanted to know.

"Never mind that," Chase told her. He supposed she had the right to be upset, seeing as she was supposed to be in charge here and probably couldn't get any answers herself. _But it's not like FEMA is going to__** have**__ any answers, _he realized.

"Ten percent unidentified heavy metal compound?" Foreman came around to look over Chase's shoulder too. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't worry about it, just deal with what we do know. Treat it like Co2 poisoning…"

"First I want you to tell me where you're getting this from," Cuddy insisted, nodding towards the computer screen. There was nothing on it to identify the source; even the web address was obscured. "And who the Hell were you on the phone with?"

"I'm on a list," Chase answered, intentionally ducking the actual question.

"What sort of list?" Foreman and House both asked (although the latter didn't sound more than casually curious, which was typical.)

"Look, we can stand around arguing about it while people start dying or we can do our jobs. This stuff becomes lethal when saturation reaches eighty percent and since it seems to be coming from cars equipped with that Atmos thing, metropolitan areas are being hit the hardest," he added, letting Cuddy skim the file for herself.

"Evacuation?" she read the word in red letters.

"Only on the coast; we're too far inland. The situation is being handled. Right now our job is to help these people here, to get everyone inside, away from the doors. You there," he stood up and called to the nearest security guard. "Get everybody back away from the exits. Every exit. No one goes outside. Period. And for the last time – _**anyone who doesn't need immediate medical attention, please to get to the cafeteria now!**__" _He walked over to a nurse, "I need a couple of you to go down with them. Keep an eye out for symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, and for God's sake try to keep people calm," he gave the woman a sharp look. "This isn't a terrorist attack, people; it's an industrial malfunction. It's being worked on, so just please just stay calm. The gas isn't lethal."

"What's going on?" Allison Cameron slid up to Foreman and House.

"Looks like your boyfriend has a backbone after all," House gave her a snide little smile. "Who knew?"

"I thought it was _having_ a backbone that got him fired in the first place," Foreman returned before Cameron could speak.

"That's just because he stood up to the wrong person," House countered. "Me."

"And we all know no one does that," said Cameron; her tone was dry.

"Good thing Cuddy outranks you," Foreman added.

"She just has a soft spot for rejects," House told him, although clearly he was aware that he was insulting himself as much as anyone else. The whole reason Foreman had been forced back to Princeton-Plainsboro was that no one would hire him after having worked for House for so long. He was tainted by House's reputation, just like Cameron and Chase. This was the only place any of them would be working for a very long time.

Cuddy stepped in next to Chase, "Come on, people! Let's go! Anyone who hasn't been exposed to the gas please move to the cafeteria…" she gave Chase a look, and under her breath told him he was going to explain himself later.

"With all due respect, no I'm not."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said 'with all due respect, no I'm not'."

"Dr. Chase…"

"I'll be happy to give you the number of who can take it up with if you'd like, but I'm afraid my hands are tied." As some semblance of order was being restored to the ER, Chase headed towards the nurses' station to try and get a handle on which patients were in for gas exposure and which were here for other injuries. _Just because there's an invasion going on out there doesn't mean people aren't injuring themselves in perfectly normal, every day acts of non-alien-related stupidity,_ he thought. In fact, he expected to see more acts of perfectly normal human stupidity before the day was over because when people were scared they did stupid things. _And people don't need to know about aliens to be scared._

He realized Lisa Cuddy was less than half a step behind him. It didn't look as if she was interested in the charts he'd picked up. "I'm sorry," Chase told her without making eye contact. "I've said as much as I can."

"Can you at least tell me what kind of 'list' you're on?"

"Auxiliary civilian medical personnel attached to the Unified Intelligence Taskforce."

"The _what?"_

"UNIT. I'm one of a couple of hundred civilian doctors around the globe who gets contacted in case of certain types of emergencies."

"Like industrial accidents?" It was obvious she didn't believe him.

"Something like that."

"And you've never mentioned this before because…?"

"It was never relevant to my job here."

……………………………………………………….

Three hours later a wave of fire swept over the sky, clearing all traces of gas. Ten minutes after that, Chase's pager went off again. He sank to the floor, exhaustion and relief overtaking him until he saw Allison peering anxiously down at him. "It's all right," he told her. "It's safe to go back outside again." _Industrial accident,_ he repeated to himself, _have to just keep saying that line… news people will be fed a story… _Allison was speaking:

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I'm sure."

"What was that?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Robert… "

"Honestly, Allison, I don't even know. But it doesn't matter. It's over. It was just an industrial accident." Even he didn't believe the words coming out of his mouth.

………………………………………..………

Chase waited until he was home to get back onto the UNIT site to read the full report, at least what was being released to civilians. He was well aware that there were plenty of details UNIT wouldn't make available to mere auxiliary personnel such as himself. Just the same, there was plenty that was being made available and it had been a long time since he'd logged in.

He was prowling through the archives' article on Sontarans when someone knocked on his door. There was really only one person who would show up at his apartment at one o'clock in the morning and the last thing he wanted Allison to see was a detailed work up on the alien species that had very nearly destroyed the earth… again.

"Did I wake you?" she asked when he finally opened his door.

"Nah, come on in. Sorry, place is a bit of a mess," he apologized as he admitted her into his living room.

"After today I really don't think I care about dirty socks."

"You all right?"

"What do you think?" Allison leaned up against the wall and folded her arms across her chest. "I want to know what really happened today, Robert. Please."

"I can't tell you."

"Can't or won't?"

"A little bit of both. Can I get you a beer or something…?"

"No. I don't want a beer," she pushed off the wall and wandered further into the room without sitting down. "I want some answers. Almost half of the cars on the planet went haywire today and started spewing poison gas…"

"It's over. Don't worry about it."

She stopped and stared at him. "How exactly am I supposed to not worry about it?"

"By not thinking about it."

"I had an Atmos system, Robert – Sally – Jen – either of them could have been killed. _**I**_ could have been killed… "

"Shhhh," he drew her into his arms and held onto her as anger melted into tears. "Are they all right?"

"Yeah. They're fine. I just want to know what happened. I need to know."

"Even if I could tell you, you wouldn't believe me."

"Foreman said you got a page today, some kind of emergency list… "

"Let it go, Allison. We survived. That's all that matters."

"So I'm just supposed to keep saying 'industrial accident' like everybody else?"

"Yeah," he brushed a stray bit of hair out of her face, tucking it securely behind her left ear, "That's exactly what you're supposed to do."

"How many other things have you lied to me about?"

"I'm not lying to you," he insisted. "You're right. It wasn't an accident, industrial or otherwise. But that's what we're supposed to say, so that's what we're goingto say. It's what _I'm _going to say, even to you."

She gave him another long measured look, clearly not happy with his answer but when he leaned in she didn't resist.

"You planning on staying the night?" Robert asked quietly.

"I don't think I want to be alone right now."

"Let's get some sleep then," he eased her towards the bedroom.

……………………………………………………………..

**Cardiff, Wales (UK)**

Jack tucked a blanket around Liz's sleeping form. She was out cold on the sofa behind what used to be Tosh's station. They both knew what had happened… who had made it happen. There was only one person mad enough to light the whole planet on fire and brilliant enough to know it would work. Jack found himself chuckling at the thought of his Doctor.

"Sorry you missed him?"

"Ianto. I didn't hear you..."

The younger man smiled and handed Jack a cup of coffee. "So are you?" His tone was deceptively light and he didn't step in quite as close as Jack might have liked.

"I'm sure I'll see him again. Some day."

Ianto nodded and turned to leave Jack to his thoughts.

"Thanks for the coffee," Jack said before he'd completely gotten away.

"Any time," Ianto favoured him with one of those sweet smiles. "I ah – I'm going to take a shower and lie down. You coming to bed soon?"

"No."

Ianto just nodded; sometimes it was easier not to ask too many questions. When Jack wanted to share what he was thinking he would. "I'll just leave the coffee pot on then, shall I?"

"Thanks. For everything, Ianto. You were great today."

"Just doing my job, Sir."

Jack smiled and pulled Ianto closer; Ianto met the kiss half way with an eagerness that surprised Jack. They were both exhausted from the long day, but tongues tangled and bodies pressed up against one another making Jack wish he didn't have work yet to do. _I'm glad you're here, though, _he thought in the younger man's direction. _Glad you'll be waiting for me when I do drag myself into bed._ "Go get some sleep, Ianto. I'll be down later," he promised.

"Try not to stay up all night."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Jack offered up a grin that left Ianto chuckling.

"Yes, but as I recall we were up to something a whole lot more fun than whatever it is you're going to be up to, all alone tonight."

Jack suspected that Ianto knew just what he was going to be 'up to'… "You know what they say, no rest for the wicked."

"If that were really the case, neither of us would ever get any sleep," Ianto leaned in and kissed him again, lightly this time, and left him to get some work done.

Jack watched him go, not making any attempt to pretend he wasn't enjoying the view. _Definitely love the suit, _he smiled and drank some more coffee.

It was late, Gwen had gone home an hour ago and by tomorrow the rest of the world would have begun putting itself back together again. _But Liz is right, she nearly died today because she's…_he couldn't bring himself to use the worlds 'too old.' He didn't think of her in terms of years, but that didn't change the fact that she couldn't keep up with them in the field and he knew it. He would miss having her here…_but I'll hate myself if she dies because I'm having a hard time replacing… _

He glanced at Tosh's station – the station that used to be Tosh's. "No one can replace you, Toshiko. No one can replace Owen." He still felt the pang of loss whenever he thought about them, saw their faces staring at him from the darkness… _Damn, I miss you, both of you…_ "But we can't carry on the way we have, either." Somebody was going to end up getting killed if they tried.

Jack tried Martha's mobile again to see if he couldn't talk her into coming to work for him. Still no answer. She'd phoned him to say she was bringing the Doctor to London, did he want to drive up and surprise him, but since then there had been nothing. Jack sighed knowing he could worry about her or he could do something useful. He opted for the latter, because one thing the Doctor wouldn't do was to ever let anything happen to Martha Jones.

Jack drained his cup and refilled it on the way back to his office and the stack of files Ianto had left for him a week ago. He sat down in his chair and began perusing the fruits of Ianto's labour; a flicker of a smile playing across his lips as that phrase drifted through his mind, too. But at the end of it, every file that Ianto had put together for him ended up in the 'no' pile.

It wasn't that Ianto hadn't given him fifteen very strong candidates; fifteen people with skill sets that would meet their needs, with life experiences that would help them fit in. It was just that none of them was Owen Harper or Toshiko Sato. And maybe that was unfair, but it was the way it was.

Frustrated, Jack shoved the entire pile into the trash and went out to Ianto's station to search the UNIT data base for himself. _Auxiliary civilian medical personnel_…

"Well that sounds promising," Jack mused as he began scanning through the files. It became even more promising when he came across a name he knew. _I_ _wonder if he still wants that job he asked me for a few years ago… _


	2. Chapter 1

_**Thank you for the reviews and additions to alert/fave lists! Please feel free to keep them coming (hint! ;-)**_

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**Chapter One: Help Wanted**

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**Cardiff, Wales (UK)**

Ianto wasn't surprised to find Jack not in bed with him. He wasn't even particularly surprised to find Jack passed out at his desk, a half empty coffee cup sitting atop a today's newspaper. _Meaning he's at least been up to the newsagent's. _

"Jack," Ianto leant in, giving his Captain's shoulder a gentle shake. "Jack, it's seven o'clock. Gwen'll be in, in an hour and you need to shower." Even that didn't seem to rouse him from sleep. Finally Ianto kissed his neck, knowing that that would get a 'rise' out of Jack, even if it wasn't necessarily the one he was aiming for.

"You could join me for that shower," the Captain replied through half-closed eyes.

"How long have you been awake?"

"Long enough for you to do that," Jack gave him a lazy smile. "So how about that shower?"

"Sorry, already had one."

"And I missed it?"

"See what happens when you stay up all night after saving the world?"

"I didn't save it."

"You helped."

Jack chuckled, straightening up and stretching. "I suppose we did, didn't we."

"Isn't that what we do?"

"What time did you say it was?"

"Seven."

Jack groaned. It wasn't so much that he needed an excessive amount of sleep (he never had) there was just something about sleeping hunched over his desk like that made feel as if he'd hardly slept at all.

"What do the papers have to say about yesterday?" asked Ianto.

"Industrial accident."

"Are people actually buying that?"

Jack shrugged. He felt a surge of gratitude when Ianto stepped behind his chair and began working some of the knots out of his shoulders. He needed coffee, and a shower, but this was nice too. He let his eyes droop shut as he relaxed.

"What were you working on?" Ianto asked a few minutes later, when some of the worst of Jack's knots had finally started to loosen under his hands.

"I think I found someone."

"Oh?"

He opened his eyes again and noticed that Ianto had spotted his hard work in the bin. "Sorry."

"I expected you'd throw them away."

"I realize you must've put a lot… what do you mean you expected it?" he demanded when he realized what Ianto had just said.

The younger man laughed, "Maybe I _should_ get a pot of coffee going for you. There's no point in my standing here trying to undo the damage you inflicted on yourself last night – especially since you're just going to do it again soon anyway."

"Guess you'll have to do a better job of enticing me into bed next time," Jack turned and grinned at him, his eyebrows raised suggestively.

"Is that a challenge?"

"Would you like it to be?"

"You know I love a challenge."

Jack chuckled. "So you expected me to throw those out?" he pressed the question.

"Yes. But I still needed to put the files together; sort of therapy, I suppose. Just to prove to myself that we really could move on, when we were ready to."

Jack was quiet, although the silence spoke volumes.

"I'm not ready either," Ianto confided; he wrapped his arms around his lover's shoulders from behind and held him close, suspecting what Jack was thinking. "But we have to, eventually, don't we?"

Jack laid his put his arms over the younger man's and held on for a long moment as if lost in thought. When he spoke, his voice was distant, "There were too many close calls yesterday. We need – _**I**_ need – to move on."

Ianto nodded. He understood the things Jack wasn't saying. Liz was great in the lab and wonderful to have around, but she was over fifty years old. Despite having had a quite a life, both with UNIT and her own group, PROBE, she wasn't a young woman any more. "Who've you come up with, then?" He asked quietly.

"Someone I met a few years back. He did a stint with UNIT; civic duty sort of thing."

"The guilty conscience of the young," he'd seen that sort of thing before. He pulled away from Jack and sat on the edge of his desk, so he they were facing one another.

"Bobby was about months out of medical school and probably completely unprepared to be in London when a Dagoni 'scouting party' showed up."

"I remember that. I'd been with Torchwood for about a year," _I'd just started seeing Lisa… _it was hard not to think of her when he thought about his life in London. "But what were_ you_ doing in London?"

"Not visiting Torchwood, I can tell you that much."

Ianto chuckled, "No, I didn't think you would be."

"I'd started making friends with some of the boys at UNIT HQ …"

"I'll bet," Ianto smirked.

Jack just laughed, "There they were with a Dagoni ship on their hands and naturally not wanting to ask Torchwood London for help… "

"They called you," Ianto deduced.

Jack nodded. "Suzie and I…" his voice caught just a little at the mention of their former colleague's name; he cleared his throat. "It was just the four of us until you stalked your way into my life. I left Tosh and Owen here and took Suzie up to London to see if we could lend a hand. I figured the more favours UNIT owed me the better."

Ianto just shook his head in amusement; he loved the way Jack told stories. The other man was almost always willing to help other organizations out, as long as there was some kind of fringe benefit for him in the end.

"I probably should've left Suzie here and taken Owen with me instead. If I had, I might not have gotten stuck with this poor kid just a few months out of medical school. He no idea what a Dagon even was."

"Erm, Jack, no one did," Ianto pointed out.

Jack gave a nonchalant shrug. "I did. Isn't that all that matters?"

"Yes, Jack, what you know is all that matters."

"Why Ianto Jones, if I didn't know better, I'd say that was sarcasm."

"I would _never_ take a sarcastic tone with _you_, Sir. You are my employer, after all."

Jack shot him a look that might have passed for a glower if they both weren't fighting laughter.

"So, you were saying?" Ianto finally prompted, when he trusted himself to speak without snickering.

"There isn't much more to the story. Bobby got himself separated from the group and I went looking for him. Found him on the wrong end of a Dagon heavy assault riffle…"

"You jumped in between him and a laser, didn't you?"

"It was either that or let him get fried. Besides, it wasn't like it could actually kill me," Jack reminded him.

"I'll bet you gave that poor kid the fright of his life."

"I think he was still trying to figure of if he should even bother with CPR when I opened my eyes."

"Has it ever occurred to you to _warn_ people?"

"Where's the fun in that?"

Ianto rolled his eyes, "Go take your shower. I'm going to put some coffee on."

"I don't suppose you'd consider making it that special industrial strength brew of yours?"

Ianto gave a heavy sigh as if he actually needed to think about the answer. He was forced to relent when Jack's expression caused him to burst out laughing again. "For you, anything. You know that," he added in a quieter tone.

"I knew there was a reason I kept you around," Jack got up and wrapped his arms around the younger man's waist.

"I thought it was because I looked good in a suit."

"You have many talents. I'd like to put a few of them to use later on, if you'll let me," he pulled Ianto close slid his hands down the younger man's body.

"Do you think we could get through breakfast before you start with the bedroom eyes?"

"It's not my eyes you should be worried about. Besides," Jack let him go, "I figure I needed to get an early start since I left you all alone last night. Otherwise I might find myself on the couch."

"Not a chance. But if you'd like to make it up to me, I won't stop your."

"Any suggestions how I should do that?" Jack asked with raised eyebrows.

"You're creative. I'm sure you'll think of something."

As the older man leaned in to kiss him, Ianto backed up, eluded his grasp with a cheeky grin. He picked up Jack's cup and made his way out to the main hub towards the coffee station, smirking quietly to himself because he knew Jack was watching his behind.

But he couldn't keep his mind off the new recruit. _Bobby._

Bobby who knew that Jack couldn't die, Bobby who had done a stint with UNIT; Bobby who was hopefully more than some starry eyed kid fresh out of medical school.

_Bobby who wasn't anywhere on any of the lists I went searching through the last few weeks… and I'm supposed to know everything. _

He set Jack's cup in the sink and started on the coffee; he could hear Liz beginning to stir.

"Good morning, Dr. Shaw," he said when she joined him a few moments later.

"Mr. Jones," she returned the smile. "Oh that smells heavenly – I think I'd like a cup of coffee this morning, if you don't mind."

"Not at all – but you'll want the second pot."

"Oh?"

"This is Jack's industrial strength brew. Not fit for us mere mortals," he warned.

She laughed, "I yield to your judgment."

He smiled at her, enjoying the comfortable quiet that settled between them while he worked. He only broke it to tell her in a quiet tone that Jack was finally ready to hire someone.

"I'm glad. It'll work out, Ianto, you'll see," she added, when the flicker of doubt crossed his face.

He just nodded; she was right. It would work out. They would move on. _There's not much choice, really…_

……………………………………………..

**Princeton, New Jersey (USA.)**

In the days after the 'industrial accident', things slowly went back to normal. People remained shy of their cars for a while, even after all of the Atmos systems were removed, but little by little life's routine fell back into place. Once in a while Chase caught Foreman giving him an odd look in the cafeteria and Cuddy called him into her office and asked him again to explain what had happened. He gave her the same regurgitated line. Industrial accident. Hands tied. Nothing more to say.

_Bloody classified information_. He wished he could just tell her that, but saying something was classified was as bad as telling the truth… most of the time. 'Classified' _was _slightly better than 'alien invasion.' That thought gave him something to smile about the rest of the day, even when House came swanning into his department like he owned the whole universe. _Or as if he seriously thinks he's the centre of it. _

The smile would probably have continued on into the night if Chase hadn't stopped to collect his mail on the way into his apartment. _Bill… Bill… Homeowners insurance, perfect considering I still __**rent**__… Coupons…Something for next door… _

Chase stopped cold when he got to the next piece of mail. It was a neat ivory envelope, clearly addressed to him. The return on the back was an address in the UK. He threw the remainder of his mail towards the coffee table, missing it completely. He barely noticed as the bills and junk mail scattered on the floor.

He sat down on the arm of the nearest chair, sliding sideways into it so that legs dangled over the side and opened the envelope. Inside there were two letters: one typed, the other written in a script that was at once curly and efficient. Even if he'd never seen the handwriting before, it wasn't difficult to guess who it belonged to. _Although it's not as if the stationary doesn't give it away…_ both letters were written on letterhead bearing a blatantly obvious honeycombed "T" logo. He read the handwritten note first:

.

_Bobby,_

_That job you were interested in a few years ago is open now. Been that way for about a month. I've been dragging my feet filling the position, honestly. If you're still interested, it's yours. Call me if you have any questions, but I'm sure you'll understand when I say I need an answer as soon as possible. _

_My newly appointed office manager thought it would be a good idea to include something more formal to help with those awkward moments at work. If you decide to come join us in Cardiff, that is._

_I hope you do. We could really use you._

_Hope to hear from you soon._

_Captain Jack Harkness_

_._

Chase's glance flickered back to the line about the job being open for about a month now. He remembered seeing a news report about a month ago about a series of devastating gas main explosions in Cardiff. _I wonder if that was a 'gas main accident' the same way last week was an ' industrial accident'._ At this point, he didn't think anything would surprise him. It also gave him a pretty good idea of what had happened to create a job opening.

He looked at the second letter.

.

_Doctor Robert Chase,_

_On behalf of the Torchwood Institute and at the request of Captain J. Harkness, I am pleased to offer you the position of team medic, based within our Cardiff (Wales) office, effective immediately. _

_Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact us on the number above, as soon as possible. Our staff are available to answer any queries, day or night._

_Ianto Jones,_

_Office Manager_

_._

He read it again. Then he read Jack's letter again as a dozen conflicting emotions shot through him. His job. His life in New Jersey. Allison.

His gaze settled on the sweater she'd left when she stayed over after the Atmos 'incident.' _I love her. I don't have the guts to tell her, but I do love her. _He didn't want to lose the possibility of spending the rest of his life with her.

But he didn't want to pass this up either, because Jack might not offer him the job a second time; in fact, he was fairly certain Jack wouldn't. There was something incredibly satisfying about the thought of being a part of something bigger than himself. How could he let that go?

He would never admit it, least of all to his former boss, but in a lot of ways House had made him feel like he was part of something important. He missed that; he missed being on House's diagnostic team. House was larger than lifeand willing to risk everything to save a patient, even if it hardly ever had anything to do with making a difference in someone else's life_._ But that didn't compare to the things he had seen in just six months with UNIT. It didn't compare to what he'd seen in a few days with Jack Harkness.

He would have joined Torchwood there and then, but when he'd shown up on Harkness' doorstep looking for a job, he had been turned down, flat. They already had a medic, and according to Jack he was 'too young.'

Without realizing it, he'd gone over and picked up Allison's sweater. It still smelled vaguely of her perfume, a sort of apple and flower scent that brought a rush of warmth to his insides. He had loved her for so long, wanted to be with her for as long as he could remember and the past year had been so good.

Then he thought about the way she'd looked at him all last week. It felt like something had changed between them now and it had nothing to do with him being an idiot a few weeks ago; a stupid argument over whether or not she'd slept with House before she started seeing Chase. While she hadn't officially forgiven him for his outburst in front of House's team, she seemed to have forgotten about being angry at it over it in the wake of the Atmos incident.

"Bloody industrial accident," he muttered aloud, wondering what sane person would actually believe that. It sounded as ridiculous as when the tabloids had screamed about the _Titanic_ being spotted over Buckingham Palace last Christmas.

Chase put down the sweater and walked into his kitchen. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and picked up the cordless phone before returning to the living room. Without stopping to calculate the time difference, he picked up Jack's letter dialed the number.

It took three rings for someone with an accent that clearly wasn't American to answer with a polite, "Hello, how may I help you?"

"Jack Harkness, please."

"Certainly. May I ask who's calling?"

"Robert Chase."

"Very good, Dr. Chase. One moment, please."

_Interesting… _Chase drank his beer while waiting through several long moments of annoying hold music.

"Bobby!"

He sighed at the sound of Jack's nickname for him. He hated it, but he had the feeling that he was never going to break Jack of using it. _Assuming I decide to do this… _"We need to talk."

"All right," Jack's tone was cautious.

"I'm willing to come to Cardiff – but only if you're willing to make room for one more."

"I only have room for one medic on my team. You know that."

"She's twice the doctor I am, Jack. Twice as smart. And she's an immunologist. You could use that."

"Somehow I have the feeling she's more than just a colleague."

"She's the woman I want to marry," Chase admitted, wondering why the first person he was telling that to was a man he hadn't spoken to in years. _Easier to tell a stranger, maybe…_

"Sounds serious. Sure you want to drag her into this?"

"In a way she's already involved. She wants to know what happened last week."

"What've you told her?"

"Only what I'm supposed to."

"But you want to tell her more, don't you?"

_No... Yes... _He shook his head, trying to clear it. "I don't know. Maybe. But she wants to know and she _is _brilliant, Jack. If I didn't want this myself, I'd tell you to forget about me and hire her instead."

"That's quite an endorsement."

"She's quite a woman."

"How soon can you get here?"

"It's going to take me at least a week – "

Jack cut him off, "I'll give you two days. If I don't hear from you by then I'm going to the next name on my list."

Chase sighed, realizing he'd managed to forget some of the man's more annoying traits. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Would that be our tomorrow, or his tomorrow?" asked a voice from the background. Chase recognized it as the same voice that had first answered the phone.

"So has 'office manager' become a euphemism for lover over there?" Chase asked, finally having done the calculations in and realizing just how late it was on the other side of the Atlantic. There was no way any normal employees would still be at work at this hour.

Jack's only answer was a wry chuckle. "Good night, Bobby."

Chase returned the laugh, "Same to you."

……………………………………...

Jack placed the receiver back on the hook and turned his attention to the handsome young Welshman sitting on the edge of his desk, wearing nothing but a bathrobe and a smile. "Now, where were we?" he inquired with a grin.

"Somewhere between here," Ianto leant in and kissed Jack's lips long and hard, relishing the way Jack cupped his face, bringing him in closer. "And here," he added when he could speak again. Slowly he drifted down Jack's body, kissing and caressing as he went. Both Liz and Gwen had gone home for the night so there was little chance of them being interrupted. Again.

Jack murmured something unintelligible as Ianto settled himself between his legs, slowly kissing here, nibbling there. He wanted Jack shaking before he gave him _any_ measure of relief.

When the Captain groaned about him being a sadistic bastard he gave a throaty laugh that made the older man shiver. Ianto gazed up at him then with a taunting smile. "I learned from the best, remember?" his voice was soft and his breath brushed warmly over Jack's already overheated skin.

"Didn't…anybody ever teach you…not to talk… with… your…"

Ianto ducked his head quickly, making sure Jack was incapable of finishing that or any other sentence…


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N:**

This is the only chapter that's set entirely in Princeton… after this they're set mainly in Cardiff. Apologies to Torchwood fans...

If anyone who isn't familiar with House feels like they want more backstory, Wikipedia has an excellent article on House and the characters... not necessary of course. After this chapter it's pretty much all Torchwood.

Thanks to those who have reviewed added this to their fave/update lists. I'd keep writing even if no one did because I'm enjoying this one… but you know, if you like it you can feel free to let me know… ;-)

**Re: Amber:**

I lied. Not on purpose ;-) I've mulled it over. I like Amber and I seriously think the writers made a mistake in killing her off. The House/Wilson/Amber dynamic is entirely too much fun to lose, so by whatever medical miracle necessary, Amber is still with us, even though she's only a very minor player in this piece.

**Re: Liz:**

Dr. Elizabeth Shaw is a former companion of the Doctor's. I figured that while Jack was searching for the "right" Doctor, he may have come across the "wrong" one and met some of the Time Lord's former companions. I brought Liz into my fic **A New Day** when Jack needed someone with a scientific background but wasn't ready to hire someone one permanently. She's been hanging around until he was ready to hire someone. Sorry for the confusion.

* * *

**Chapter Two: With or Without You**

* * *

**Princeton, New Jersey (USA): **

Allison Cameron opened her door and nearly tripped over the man sitting with his legs stretched out across her front porch. "Robert?" She blinked at him. "It's five o'clock in the morning. What are you doing here?"

"I needed to see you."

As soon as he spoke she smelled the beer on his breath. "Are you _drunk?"_

He laughed lightly and shook his head. "No. I've had a beer… Well… three, actually. All night. But I'm not drunk."

Looking at him sitting there with his shirt half out of his jeans, it was hard to believe he'd only had three beers. She knelt down to have a better look at him, anger giving way to concern when she saw the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. "Are you all right?"

"Who knows? We need to talk."

She glanced at her watch again. If she left right now, she could blame being late on traffic. "Can't this wait until later? My shift starts in twenty minutes."

"Trust me, being late for work _isn't _the end of the world."

She frowned at the odd smile that played across his lips when he said that. "Have you slept?" she asked.

"Not recently."

She stood, hauling him to his feet with her. "All right. One cup of coffee and then I have to go. You make it while I call in and let Lindsey know I'll running late."

Robert followed her into the kitchen and watched her dial the phone while he got the coffee and filters out of the cupboard. He'd spent enough time at her place to know his way around her kitchen; he even had a toothbrush in her bathroom. She knew her way around his home just as well and had her own toothbrush and some make up there, as well. It occurred to him that they'd never discussed living together.

"Hey, Allison…" he ignored the angry look she gave him; she was still talking on the phone. "What do you think about the idea of us moving in together?"

She shot him another glare as she finished up her call. The receiver was barley back on the hook before she turned and asked him if he'd lost his mind.

"That's up for debate," he poured the water through the top of the coffee machine. As dark brown liquid began filling the pot, Robert helped himself to a bagel from the fridge. "Hungry?" he offered.

"I've eaten, thanks," her tone was cold. She leaned back against the counter and folded her arms across her chest, still scowling while he ate.

"What?" he finally asked.

"I was on the phone with work! Somebody could have heard you."

"It's not like the whole hospital doesn't know we're seeing each other." He took another bite of bagel, helped himself to some orange juice and then got a couple of cups down from the cupboard. "What's the big deal if someone hears my voice over the phone?"

"It's a big deal to me."

He poured their coffee without apologizing. He fixed both cups and handed hers over. "Have you ever thought about us living together?" he repeated, as he leant up against the counter opposite her.

"I suppose… sometimes. Why?"

"Just a thought, I guess."

"Robert, what's going on?"

"Lots of things and I promise I'll tell you every last one of them. But first I need to talk to you about something serious. Really serious."

She took a deep breath and let it out, looking as if she was afraid of where this conversation was going.

He wasn't surprised; he wasn't even surprised that he'd never brought up the subject of moving in together before, even if he wished now that he would have. It might be easier to have this conversation if she already knew how much he really loved her. "I umm… I got an offer for a new job yesterday," he began tentatively.

She frowned, "When did you start looking for a new job?"

"I didn't. It came looking for me. I'd like you to come with me."

"_What?_" she snapped, glaring at him as if he really had lost his mind. "I have a job, Robert," she reminded him. "I _like_ my job."

"I know."

She shook her head and looked down into her coffee again, seemingly lost in thought for a very long moment. "Where?" she finally asked.

"Cardiff."

"Where?"

"Cardiff, Wales," he clarified.

"As in England?"

"United Kingdom, technically, but close enough," he shrugged his shoulders.

"You can't possibly be serious."

"Why not?"

"For one thing, I won't be able to practice medicine there… "

"That can be worked out." He set his cup down and crossed the distance between them, resting his hands lightly on her arms before continuing, "All I'm asking you to do is think about it, Allison."

"There's nothing to think about. I love my job. I don't want to move. I don't want to move toWales. I don't want to move _anywhere. _And I certainly don't want to follow somebody to a strange country. Why would you even _ask_ me something like that?"

"Do you love me?" he countered.

She pulled away from him, "That's not fair."

"Why not?"

Without answering, she went over to the kitchen window and stared out at the pre-dawn gloom. He followed, but kept his hands in his pockets.

"It's simple question, you know," he said after a moment of staring out at the city.

Allison looked up at his reflection in the glass, "No. It isn't."

"There are only two possible answers, here: either yes you do or no you don't. It's pretty straight forward."

"Love is anything but simple and straight forward."

"Not from where I'm standing."

She blinked up at him, waiting for him to continue.

"If you do love me and you won't go with me, then I have to turn it down," he explained, stepping closer, "But if you don't love me, I guess I have nothing keeping me here." He shrugged. "Simple."

She swallowed back the lump in her throat and took a long moment to study his reflection in the glass. "Are you serious?"

His lips twitched upwards into a wry half-smile, "As serious as an industrial accident."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It means we both know there as no accident. But I can't tell you what it was if you don't at least come with me for a couple of days. Just…just check the place out before you decide."

"That's sounding an awful lot like blackmail."

"Not really. Well… maybe a little bit," he couldn't help but grin. "But all I'm asking you for is a couple of days. You could think of it as a holiday if you want."

"Not that I'm considering saying yes," she met his gaze in the window, "But when?"

"A couple of days."

Allison turned to face him, "You mean _in _a couple of days? Robert, there is no way I can drop everything and leave like that. I can't believe you would either."

"I have to be there as soon as possible."

"Why?" she demanded.

"The position's already been vacant for too long. They can't hold it open for me if I'm not going to take it." He stepped closer and took her hands in his. "I love you. I know I never said it before now and I probably should have, but I do love you." He gave her a questioning look. She had yet to say whether or not she loved him.

"What… what _exactly_ would I be doing if I decided to come with you?"

"I spoke to the guy in charge when I got the letter; if you come with me, he'll make room on his team for you. Allison, this it isn't like any other job you've ever thought about taking," he held her hands tight a moment before continuing. "You've always said that you got into medicine to help people. This is a chance to do that in ways you can't imagine. It's big. Bigger than anything you've _ever_ considered."

She didn't think she'd ever heard him sounding so convinced of anything. "What is it?"

"It's better for you to see it for yourself."

"You mean run off to Wales with you?"

"Just for a couple of days," he repeated. "You can always come back."

"You've already made up your mind about this, haven't you?"

"I promised I'd call back today with an answer. But yeah. I spent the whole night just walking, thinking..."

"And drinking beer, apparently," she commented dryly.

He gave her half a smile, "I only had one at my apartment and another two at a bar. The rest of the time I was just thinking. I _want_ you to come with me. But if you don't love me, if you don't see your future with me the same way I see mine with you, then there's no reason for me to stay here."

"You can't spring something this on me and honestly expect me to make a decision without some time to think it about it. You've had a whole night, can I at least have a day?" she asked. He remained silent, but nodded, indicating that he understood her need to think it over. "When are they expecting your call?"

"Anytime today."

She gazed down at his hands holding hers for a long while before asking if he'd really meant it when he said he loved her.

"Yes. Allison," Robert freed one of his hands so he could tilt her face up towards his again. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"Do…do you think we could maybe just take this one step at a time?" she asked nervously.

"All right." The clock in the hall chimed, reminding them of the time. "I've gotta go home and shower, my shift starts in a few hours."

"You can't go into work like this."

"I'll be fine," he assured her.

"Why don't you take a nap here? You can toss your shirt in the washing machine and take a shower."

"Thanks," he leant in to kiss her but Allison didn't meet him half way the way she usually did. She did return the kiss, though, sliding her hands gingerly around his waist, giving him some hope that she would at least consider his invitation.

…………………………………………………….

Allison felt like she was in a fog the whole drive in to work. Cardiff? Wales? Robert had to be kidding. He couldn't possibly expect her to pack up her whole life and move to some strange country on a moment's notice. They'd never even discussed moving in together.

They'd never discussed love, either. They were just dating.

Allison was so absorbed in thought, she missed her turn-off. Muttering under her breath, she took the first turn-around and drove back to the hospital.

She took the first parking place she saw and headed straight into the building. It was a relief to be surrounded by familiar fluorescent lights and the antiseptic smell. She didn't even bother going to her locker, she wanted to get right to work.

"Perfect timing," Lindsey greeted as she came onto the floor. "We just got a call about an eight car pile up on 206. Busses'll be here any minute. Six critical."

Allison took a deep breath and nodded, mentally bracing herself for the onslaught. She knew she should feel guilty, but she was glad she wouldn't have time to think about Robert or Cardiff for a while. She wasn't ready to make that kind of decision.

………………………………………………………..

Robert walked out of Lisa Cuddy's office feeling both relieved and anxious.

He'd put off talking to her as long as possible, so it was a relief to have finally gotten it over. But it felt so much more real now that he'd tendered his resignation. He was really leaving. He was really taking a job with Torchwood. He'd always thought the saying about how today being the first day of the rest of one's life was a terrible cliché, but that's what it felt like. He found himself smiling the rest of the day, even as he slogged through the last of his paperwork.

At the end of his shift, he told the head of the surgical team that he'd resigned. He felt Dr. Simpson had the right to hear it form him personally. Simpson didn't take his leaving as gracefully as Cuddy, but it didn't matter, as of six P.M., Robert Chase was no longer an employee of the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. All that was left was to clear out his locker and go home.

Foreman caught him in the locker room. "So is it true?"

"Hello, Foreman, nice to see you too. My day, it's going great, thanks for asking," he replied in an uncharacteristically sarcastic tone.

Eric Foreman gave him one of those looks, his head tilted to one side, lips pursed, and his arms folded over his chest. He huffed out an exasperated sigh before speaking. "Fine. How's your day?"

Robert grinned, "Great, thanks for asking. How about yours?"

"Are you really quitting?" he repeated the question.

"Not quitting. _Quit_. I talked to Cuddy this afternoon. House must be losing his touch if he's only just now sending you to find out if it's true."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Come off it," Robert scoffed. "We both know House sent to find out whether or not I'd really quit. If he wants to know more, he can come and ask me himself."

"When did you start looking for a new job?"

"I didn't. Something that I'd applied for a few years ago opened up."

"And they wouldn't even give you time to give notice?" he asked in an incredulous tone.

Robert shrugged and took the last item out of his locker. He closed the locker door for what he realized was the last time and turned to face the other man. "Sometimes it just works out that way, I guess."

"When are you leaving?"

"Like I said, if House has any more questions, he can come and ask me for himself." He shouldered his duffle bag and headed for the locker room door.

"Hey," Foreman followed him out into the corridor, "I'm not here asking for House."

"Yes you are. As much as you like to pretend that you're equals, he's still your boss. And he's still House. But contrary to his own belief, he's _not _the centre of the universe."

The other doctor continued to scowl at him. "You've been acting strange since last week. What's going on?"

"I guess I just found out what I was made of," Robert confided with a tight little smile.

When the gas had first starting streaming out of cars, when people started panicking and whispering words like terrorist attack, his gut had told him it was something more. Then when he got the page from UNIT and felt sheer panic at realizing not only was it alien, but it was a world-wide assault… he didn't know how he'd gotten through it, but he had. Ever since then he'd started seeing the world and his place in it differently. He didn't look forward to more aliens, more attacks, but the idea of being part of something bigger than he was snapped things into prospective.

"Is it connected?" Foreman asked him then.

"Hmmm?" Robert blinked, refocusing his thoughts on the man walking next to him. "Is what connected?"

"What happened the other week and you leaving like this."

"Indirectly, I suppose. Jack probably wouldn't have even remembered my name if I weren't on that list." Robert stopped and dug the letter out of his bag, the formal one, and showed it to Foreman the same way he'd shown it to Cuddy earlier.

Foreman's reaction was almost the same as hers had been. "Torchwood Institute? Never heard of it."

"No reason you would have."

"Military?"

He almost laughed, "Not hardly. Jack's retired Air Force, though," he added. "He still likes to go by 'Captain.'"

"What about Cameron?"

"I dunno, you'll have to ask her." He couldn't help but smile. They hadn't talked about it when they met for lunch, but he was sure that she would come to Cardiff with him for a couple of days. He knew once she met Jack and saw what Torchwood did, she'd stay.

"This isn't much of an offer of employment," he said handing the letter back. "It doesn't even say what the pay is. Are you sure you don't want to think about this a little more?"

"You sound just like Cuddy. She told me to take some vacation time and check it out before making up my mind. I told her that would be unfair because I know I'm not coming back."

"When are you leaving?"

"Wednesday."

"That's in two days… "

"Which means I have a lot to do. See you 'round, Eric," he shot Foreman a parting grin and headed down the corridor.

He'd almost made it all the way out of the hospital building when he heard a familiar voice calling, "Hey!"

Robert turned, "Hey, Dr. Wilson."

"You're leaving?" was the first thing Wilson said when he caught up with him at the door.

Robert groaned, "Not you too."

"But it's true, you're really leaving? House wasn't just having one over on me?"

He chuckled, shaking his head, "No, he's not having one over on you. I'm really leaving."

"Why?"

"Something better came up."

"Wow. Well, congratulations," Wilson extended his hand.

"Thank you, Dr. Wilson," Robert accepted. "Oh and ah, don't let anyone plan a going away party or anything if you can help it. I'll be on a plane in a couple of days anyway."

"You're asking me to control House? Have you forgotten what he's like?"

"Right. Well… I'm out of here in just a couple of days so… "

"Is Cameron going with you?"

Coming from anyone else, Robert would have suspected it was still House asking the questions. But somehow Dr. Wilson had always seemed to be able to maintain independent thought, even with a guy like House as a best friend.

"I hope so," he answered the question honestly. "Otherwise I'm going to have to return the ring I bought this morning."

Wilson blinked unable to mask his surprise at the sudden announcement.

"I'm going to wait until we get to Cardiff to ask her."

"Wow. Again. And congratulations again."

"Just don't tell House," he said. "I already know you tell Amber everything."

Wilson just chuckled and wished him well.

………………………..…………………

It was late when Robert arrived at Allison's apartment with her favourite Chinese takeaway and a movie rental. He let himself in and found her in the darkened living room, a glass of wine in hand. The bottle sat open and half empty on the coffee table in front of her. "Allison?"

She didn't respond or even look up. He set down the cartons down next to the wine bottle.

"Allison? Are you ok?" he sat down next to her.

She drained the glass and refilled it before meeting his gaze. "I wasn't going to tell you this tonight, but first Foreman… then Wilson…"

He felt a flutter of panic in his chest, "What did Wilson tell you?"

"Just that he hoped I'd enjoy Cardiff."

Robert let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He was grateful the only person Wilson would have told about the ring was Amber and she wouldn't tell House or his team out of pure spite.

"I hope you like Cardiff, too," he reached for her free hand, but she pulled away. "Allison…"

"I'm not going."

For several long moments he couldn't speak. He couldn't think. All he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears, like cold water crashing down around him, drowning out every other sound in the room. "W-what?" he finally stammered.

"I'm not going and you had _no right _to tell anyone that I was."

"But I didn't! Allison, all I said was that Foreman would have to ask you himself… "

"You might as well have said that I was going with you! Even Cuddy pulled me aside to ask me if she needed to find someone to fill my job, too," she took a big gulp of wine.

"You know I would never speak for you…"

"It doesn't matter," she refilled her glass again. "Foreman and Wilson aren't the reason I'm not going with you. I…I don't love you, Robert."

"Allison…_please…_"

"Here," she cut him off, nodded to a laundry basket sitting next to the sofa. "This is all the stuff you've managed to leave here over the last eight months. I thought you might want it back before you left."

"I don't understand…" he felt like a helpless spectator watching the world fall apart, but unable to stop it. "I love you. I…I want to spend the rest of my life with you…"

"I know you do. But I don't."

"Why not?"

"Do I really have to have a reason?" she snapped.

"Yes!"

"Well I don't. I'm sorry. Please just… just go."

"I…"

"Just _go,"_ she repeated.

Ignoring the knot in the pit of his stomach, he looked at the basket; their entire relationship, summed up in one fucking laundry basket. "I… here," he stood up and fished his key ring out of his pocket. He handed her back the key to her apartment. "You can keep mine," he added, picking it off the top of the basket of his things. "You'll need it to get in. I'm…I'll be on a plane in the morning…"

"Robert…"

"I told you. There was only one thing that could have made me stay. Without…" he took a breath to steady himself, "Without it, there's no point hanging around, is there? Feel free to pick up your things from my place whenever's convenient."

She took the key from his outstretched hand without meeting his gaze. "Thanks."

"Yeah. You're welcome." The numbness necessary to get through the next few hours overtook his senses, blinding him to the tears welling up behind her eyes. "Well… I guess this is good-bye..."

"Wait…"

"No," his voice became suddenly cold. "Don't say anything more." He didn't want to hear that she was sorry or for her to say good bye or even that he should have a nice life. He just wanted to get out of there while he still could because he knew that any second now he was break down and he didn't want to do that in front of her. He picked up the basket and stalked out of her apartment.

…………………………….………………..

Allison sagged against the sofa, listening to his retreating footsteps. She waited until she heard his car roar to life and peel away from the curb before letting the tears she'd been holding back fall free.

_I love you too, Robert, just not enough to pack up my whole life and follow you half way around the world… I wish I could… _

"But I'm afraid to love anybody that much ever again," she drained her glass and went into the kitchen to get a fresh bottle.


	4. Chapter 3

A huge thank you to my beta reader for this story, especially for the cultural references (and catching some of those stupid spelling mistakes; I was the one wincing when I saw some of the goofs I'd made. :-)

**Thanks to everyone for reviewing / favouriting / story-alerting this one. Hope y'all continue to enjoy!**

**SPECIAL THANKS to nitpickers ;-) Changes duly, humbly and gratefully made. :-)**

* * *

**Chapter Three: New Country, New Life**

**Cardiff, Wales (UK): **

………………………………………………………..

"There's a good girl," Ianto crooned softly at the pterodactyl. For most of the last year he'd been working on improving their relationship. It had started with chocolate, but not wanting her to gain unnecessary weight, he'd eventually switched to mutton and beef. Mutton was definitely her favourite and it's what he was offering her now.

"There's a good girl," he repeated in a low, even tone as Myfanwy inched closer. "Now when have I ever hurt you, hmmm?" he asked when she tilted her head to one side, eyeing him suspiciously. Wearing an extra heavy work glove over top of a chain mail chef's glove, he held out a fresh cut of lamb. Jack kept telling him that one of these days he was going to lose a finger, and unlike Jack's it wouldn't grow back, but he wasn't going to give their 'guard dog' opportunity to eat one of his digits. "There we go," he encouraged when she focused in on the meat.

Slowly, the pterodactyl inched forward. She stretched out her neck as far as it would go and plucked the meat from his hand then jumped back before gulping it down.

"Well you certainly won't win any points for table manners," Ianto told her in the same even croon. "But at least I've still got all ten digits," he smiled and took a half a step forward. She stayed where she was. He took another step. And then another. And then the alarm sounded, signaling someone's arrival in the Hub.

Myfanwy squawked loudly and took to wing as Ianto cursed in two languages. _It has to be Gwen,_ he thought. _She has the absolute worse timing of anyone I've ever met. _Ianto made his way towards the door telling himself that he wasn't going to snap at Gwen, it wasn't her fault, she'd probably forgotten something at her desk. "Ianto!" Jack hollered down from his office. The pterodactyl was still screeching noisily.

"I've got it!"

When the cog door rolled aside, it didn't reveal Gwen, or Liz, either. It was a disheveled man with long blond hair wearing at least a day's worth of stubble and a rumpled blue shirt. He was carrying a pair of suitcases, three garment bangs and had a duffle bag slung over one shoulder. On a better day, he _might_ have looked like the file photo of Dr. Robert Chase. As soon as he spotted the pterodactyl diving for his head, he jumped back with a loud shriek, dropped both suitcases and ducked for cover.

"Stop it! You're only frightening her more," Ianto took a step towards the man in an attempt to convey to the pterodactyl, who was in full 'guard dog' mode, that it was all right. Unexpected though he was, the stranger wasn't unwelcome.

"I'm scaring _her?_" the man yelped as the pterodactyl came at him a second time.

"Bobby?" Jack emerged to find out what was spooking Myfanwy. He touched one of the controls on his wrist strap, activating the ultra sonic 'ok' signal to quiet her down. Apparently it didn't convince her, because instead of flying back up to her alcove, she took another swoop at Bobby's head.

"Shit! Jack! You could have warned me you had a bloody dinosaur here!"

"Welcome to Torchwood," Jack grinned, crossing the distance between them, heedless of the still disgruntled pterodactyl.

"Is that thing safe!"

Jack just continued laughing, while Ianto stood nearby looking peeved. Myfanwy seemed to take this as her cue that everything was actually ok and with one last turn around the Hub, she vanished back into her alcove.

"That thing could have bloody killed me!"

The more indignant he became, the more humorous Jack found the situation. He held out his hand, "Like I said, welcome to Torchwood."

Ianto pulled off the gloves and pushing away his irritation for later. He extended his hand as well. "Dr. Chase, I presume. Ianto Jones, Sir," he introduced himself with formality. "It's a pleasure to meet you at last. I'm sorry I wasn't at the airport to greet you." He felt irritated that he hadn't been given proper warning to plan for Dr. Chase's arrival, but given the man's unkempt appearance, coupled with the fact that he was alone, Ianto felt quite certain that the oversight wasn't his.

Dr. Chase accepted the hand Ianto offered and in a strained tone took full responsibility for showing up both early and unannounced.

"Isn't it a little late to still be at work?" he asked then, his tone betraying nothing but honest curiosity.

"He lives here," Jack maneuvered to stand next to Ianto. "With me."

"With you? As in _with _you?"

"Well you don't see anybody else here, do you?" the Captain quipped back.

"Just the bloody lizard," Robert muttered.

"She's a pterodactyl, Sir. Pterodon, to be exact."

"And you let her fly around like that?" he directed the question more towards Jack than Ianto.

"What else would you suggest?" Ianto raised an eyebrow.

"Right. Torchwood. I should have figured it'd be something like this."

Jack just smiled, "So, would you like the grand tour or…?" he offered tentatively, shoving both hands in his pockets.

"Why don't I make some coffee while you show Dr. Chase around?" Ianto suggested.

"I think I need something stronger than a cup of coffee."

"You've never had his coffee," Jack's smile became a full on grin as he reached down and picked up of Bobby's suitcases. "Come on, let's get this out of the way and I'll give you the ten-cent tour while Ianto gets the coffee. Conference room," he added in Ianto's direction, before the other could even ask. Jack ignored the look Ianto gave him when he deposited the suitcases at the Welshman's station, telling Bobby to go ahead and pile the rest of his stuff there, too. "So what do you think?" he asked as he led the way through the main Hub area.

"It's big."

"Big enough for a dinosaur to fly around," Jack couldn't help himself.

"You really could have warned me."

"Where's the fun in that?"

Robert sighed. "Right. Any other surprises I should be aware of?"

"Plenty. But they wouldn't be surprises if I told you about them, now would they?" Jack led the way down into the medical bay and invited Bobby to make himself at home, since this was where he'd do most of his work.

"Small. But I guess for one person it's enough space," he seemed to intentionally break eye contact when he said that.

Jack didn't press the issue just yet. He leaned up agains thte wall and watched Bobby wander around the bay, picking up this or that, looking over equipment, getting himself familiar with the area. "I've had Liz Shaw here for the last month or so."

Bobby looked up in surprise. "Dr. Elizabeth Shaw?"

"You know her?"

"Only by reputation. I'm surprised you'd be looking for a replacement for someone like her."

Jack hesitated… _but there's not much use to sugar coating it. _"Torchwood isn't the safest place for a fifty year old scientist, no matter how good her credentials are."

"Right."

"Bobby…"

"I get it, Jack. Any one of us could die at any given moment, present company excluded. I read the UNIT files on the Sontarans. And Daleks, Cybermen, Autons, even the bloody Zygons."

Jack gave him a sly little smile, "Our files are better. And I still die. I just keep coming back."

"Did you ever find out how that worked?" Bobby perched himself on the edge of the cool steel table in the centre of the room.

"As a matter of fact, yes," Jack nodded his head before steering the conversation back on topic. "But what I need you to understand what we do here is dangerous; more dangerous than you can imagine. Owen – Dr. Owen Harper – died the second time, trying to shut down the Turnmill Nuclear power plant. He got stuck in the venting chamber."

"Hell of a way to go."

"Yeah," Jack came over and sat down next to him. "It was."

"Did that have something to do with the gas explosions you guys had last month?"

"We lost two people that day. Owen and Toshiko Sato. Owen had been with me four years, Tosh five. He was 27, she was 29. Her birthday was next week."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

"But you said this Owen died the _second _time…?" Bobby asked then.

"That's another long story."

"I get the feeling you're full of those."

"When you get to be my age," Jack teased with eyebrows raised. He had teased Bobby mercilessly about being a 'kid' the first time they'd met and it had since become something of a running joke between them.

"Don't even start with that shit. I'm _not_ a kid any more."

"I'm still older than you."

Bobby seemed to be debating asking just how much older, but apparently changed his mind, "So I take it should brush up on my nuclear physics while I'm here?"

"You should brush up on a lot of things. _After_ a cup of coffee. And if I know Ianto, he's probably fixed up some sandwiches for you. Come on," Jack pulled himself back to his feet.

Bobby followed him back up the steps, "So you and him are really…?"

"Together. But don't think that's stopped me from noticing just how cute you grew up to be," Jack flashed a lascivious grin over one shoulder. "There is _always_ room for one more player in naked hide and seek. Or any other game you'd care to play naked."

"I think I liked it better when you were calling me too young for my own good – or was that _your _own good?" Bobby asked with a bit of a grin.

Jack laughed, but then continued in a more serious tone, "Look I'm not going to pry, but if you need someone to talk to, my door is always open."

"Thanks, but there's nothing to talk about. I thought she loved me. I was wrong. End of story."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. In a way it's just as well I found out when I did."

"How long were you two together?"

"We… it's a little complicated. We started officially dating almost a year ago. But, you know, new country, new life. Fresh start. Assuming your pet dinosaur doesn't decide to eat me for breakfast," he shot a dark look in Jack's direction.

The Captain just chuckled and continued leading the way up to the conference room where, as predicted, Ianto had brought the coffee and a plate of fresh sandwiches.

"I wasn't sure what you liked," Ianto gave an almost apologetic smile as the two men came in. "But I thought you might be hungry. And of course, coffee." He handed Jack and Bobby each a cup. "I wasn't sure how you took yours, Dr. Chase, so I brought up the sugar and cream. I've also milk if you prefer," he offered the young Australian doctor.

"Are you always this polite?" Bobby asked bluntly.

"You should see him in bed."

Ianto cleared his throat and gave him a look that told Jack he was in trouble later, but otherwise he made no comment.

For his part, Bobby seemed to be making the effort to ignore them; he sat down and took a sip of his coffee and blinked. "Wow."

"Told you," Jack took his own usual place at the head of the table, while Bobby helped himself to a sandwich.

Ianto was about to join them when every phone in the place started ringing and Ianto's pager all went off.

"We have got to find a better way of catching in coming calls," Jack groaned over the noise.

"Torchwood at your service, day or night," Ianto reminded him in a dry tone as he walked over to the phone on the conference room wall.

"Do you get a lot of calls after hours?" Bobby asked Jack.

"No such thing as after hours when your business is alien threats, Bobby. You never know when a family of aliens is going to take over the Mayor's office or somebody is going to unearth an alien space ship or some other artifact. We've gotta be ready for all of it, day or night."

"I suppose you've got a point. Do you have a rotating night shift, or is it just you two?"

"Don't start giving him ideas," Ianto said as he joined them back at the table. "I should appreciate_ some_ time to sleep, thank you, Dr. Chase."

The blond medic gave him a quizzical look.

"If we had a rotating night shift," Ianto explained, "I'd be up all night, every night, making coffee. I would much rather field incoming calls myself. This way I only miss the occasional night's sleep. To work, anyway," he added with a look in Jack's direction.

It was the Captain's turn to clear his throat. "So… Who was on the phone?"

"Detective Swanson. She wants us to have a look at something."

"Swanson? Should I know that name?" Jack asked him.

Ianto forced a smile, trying not to think about the reasons why Jack might not remember a name from what was two thousand years ago in his own private timeline, but only two years to everyone else. "Kathy Swanson. Suzie…?"

"Right. Poetry."

At Bobby's slight glance, Ianto shook his head. _Please don't even ask…_ He turned his attention to Jack. "Shall I call Gwen and Liz?"

"Have them meet us there. Bobby, you ready to dive on in?"

"Why not?" He shoved the last of the sandwich into his mouth and washed it down with the remainder of the coffee before following the other two down to the Hub's main area.

"When was the last time you used a firearm?" Jack inquired.

"I went by the range yesterday. Didn't do too badly."

Jack nodded to Ianto to get him a weapon from the armory. "Standard procedure," Jack told him, when Ianto handed over a pair of guns. "Stun gun. Real gun. Only use the latter if you have to."

"Got it."

Jack watched Bobby check over both quickly, efficiently. Slower than he would have preferred, but some things would come with time. Besides, whatever Detective Swanson wanted, it wasn't likely going anywhere, so technically they weren't in a hurry.

"No guns in the Hub," he added as Ianto helped him on with his coat. "When you come back in, they go to Ianto to clean and put away. If you decide to carry a gun on your own time, I don't want it out or on you here. You can keep it in your desk if you want, but the rule is no guns here. Understood?"

"Perfectly."

Ianto handed him an ear piece and com. "Frequency's already set. Unlike your weapons, you should keep this on you at all times. I'll get you a new mobile tomorrow, but this will keep you in touch with us and us with you. Everything else we need is in the SUV," he added before the other man could ask. "Oh, I do suggest keeping a basic kit in your own car, once you've acquired one. Never really know when you're going to run into trouble or need, oh, I don't know, dinosaur meds, perhaps."

Jack glared at him, "Don't start."

"I'm just saying. Torchwood London would have had dinosaur meds, Jack."

He gave Ianto a look that was a mix of amusement an annoyance, and led the way out of the Hub.

Bobby fell into step just behind the other two men. "And I suppose there's really no such thing as my own time, is there?"

"Not really," said Ianto. "Like Jack said, you never know when aliens are going to overtake city hall."

………………………………………………………..

Ianto handed Bobby a large black case from behind the back seat as Jack pulled to a stop. He pulled another out for himself.

Bobby gave a quizzical look, but there wasn't time to ask or answer questions; Jack was already getting out of the vehicle.

"I'll have two more joining us," the Captain said to the uniformed officer who met them at the curb. They were in the middle of a quiet row of nearly identical homes just at the outskirts of Cardiff. It was, aside from the police cars, ambulance, and two fire engines, an idyllic little neighbourhood filled white fences, flower gardens, and neatly kept lawns; just the sort of neighbourhood that never seemed to see anything exciting happen. So when something _**did **_happen, everyone came out in droves, despite the fact that it was well past ten at night. "And if you could get some of your people to get those bystanders back away from here, I'd appreciate it," Jack added as another knot of on-lookers appeared from around a corner.

"Still swanning in and taking over, I see, Captain Harkness," Swanson greeted him with a wry smile.

If she thought anything of the personnel changes since the last time she'd dealt with Torchwood, she kept it to herself and Jack was grateful. "Detective Swanson, just as lovely as I remember," he returned her smile with one of his own.

"You really haven't changed, have you?"

"And you'd be devastated if I had. Admit it, you just called us out here because you wanted to see me again," he winked.

Swanson rolled her eyes, "This way, please, Captain. Gentlemen," she added towards Bobby and Ianto. "I should warn you, it's a bit, well, odd for us anyway. Maybe you see this sort of thing every day." She led the way into the home.

"Does he ever let up?" Bobby asked Ianto quietly as they followed Jack inside.

His first impression was of a neatly kept home: Family photos, amateur oil paintings on the wall and a shelf with book and a few old trophies for bowling and darts.

"Never," Ianto answered with half a smile; it looked like he was making the same observations, too.

"Doesn't it bother you?"

"Why should it? I'm the one in his bed every night."

"Coming kids, or are you going to stand there gabbing all night like a pair of school girls at recess?" Jack admonished with a wry grin that gave Ianto the impression he'd overheard part of the conversation.

Ianto returned Jack's grin as Bobby blushed.

_Score one for my Welshman, _Jack thought to himself. He followed Detective Swanson through the living room into the kitchen; the smell of burning meat hit him even before he crossed the threshold. Only it wasn't a Sunday roast. "I have to admit, this is a little peculiar, even for us," he told the detective referring to the charred body, presumably human, body standing at the kitchen sink as if having been frozen in place in the middle of going about its regular routine. The body was the only thing that appeared to have been touched by whatever caused it to become toasted. "Any idea who this was?" he asked the detective.

"Presumably the man who lives here, Harold Miller. It was the neighbour who called it in: Selma Peterson. She's outside with one of my men. So far she's been pretty hysterical, going on about glowing light. That's why she let herself in the back and, well, you can imagine what finding something like that would do to a normal person." Swanson seemed to be evaluating him to see if he was shocked or appalled or if really, it was just all in a day's work.

"Ok, Bobby, this is your department. Ianto, search out the rest of the house, see if there's anything unusual. I'm going to see if the neighbour can tell me anything. Detective Swanson, if you would be so kind as to clear your people out of here."

"I know, I know, sensitive instruments and all that," she shook her head, but called for the police to pull back nevertheless.

Robert Chase watched the detective, Jack and Ianto each depart in separate directions, leaving him all alone with the upright, charred remains of a person who had presumably been healthy just a few hours ago. For the first time since medical school, he felt his gorge rising but was determined not to throw up on his first assignment.

He set the case Ianto had handed him on the kitchen table and opened it and saw just when he'd hoped to find. Menthol rub. He smeared a little just under his nose but he could still smell it… _him_, he reminded himself. Just because he was dead didn't make Harold Miller any less a person or him any less a doctor. _And I knew what I was signing on for._ But that didn't stop him from feeling lost.

He wandered around the kitchen, trying to figure out what he should do first, trying desperately not to ask himself what House would do. This was out of House's league and he knew it, but somehow that thought didn't bring him much satisfaction just now. _Because it's out of my league, too. _He gave himself a good mental shake.

"Ok," he said to himself. There was an opened tin of stew on the counter. Pots were in the cupboard over the sink. "So you were reaching for a pot and then what?"

There were no scorch marks on the floor and no singe marks on the ceiling. In fact other than the horrific odour, there was nothing to indicate that anything unusual had happened here.

"All right, start with what you know and work from there," he told himself. Gloves. Tweezers. Bags. Tissue sample. Wait – mask. Mask first, _then_ tweezers and bags and a tissue sample… hmm… no, first mask, then digital camera, then tissue samples.

They'd probably take the body back to Torchwood, but looking at it, he was doubtful it would survive the trip. _Right, you can do this. Bobby._

He didn't think he'd ever let anybody call him that again, but he suspected that getting Harkness to call him anything but Bobby was going to be a losing battle. _And I'd probably better pick my battles carefully around here, stick to the things that actually matter._ Besides, new country, new life_, why not a new name as well? _

……………………………………………….

Liz and Gwen arrived within minutes of one other. Jack gave them the situation in fifty words or less, including the suggestion that they not say anything to Bobby about his early, solo, arrival.

Both agreed and Liz went in to give him a hand with the body. Jack asked Gwen to see if Ianto needed a hand with the house.

"And watch yourself in there," he added. "We have no idea what did this or why."

Gwen just gave him a smile, "Do we ever?"


	5. Chapter 4

**Thank you again to those who have reviewed / favourited / alterted this one! **Your kind words and actions are appreciated whole-heartedly.

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**Chapter Four: An Ordinary Life**

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**Princeton, NJ (USA):**

Robert's apartment looked so normal. It was like he'd just gone out for a bite to eat or up to the corner store for something he'd forgotten. _He's always forgetting something…_ Allison ignored the tightness in her gut and shut the door behind her, sagging against it a moment. She remembered the last time she'd been here, the day of the Atmos 'accident.'

She wiped the tears away and walked around his living room. Yesterday's paper was still on the coffee table. There was an empty coffee cup sitting on top of it. She half expected him to come walking out of the bedroom…

But the bedroom was empty. The dresser drawers were all open. Empty. The only thing she found in the closet was a blouse she'd left here last week, a pair of her jeans.

She bit back more tears tears. He was gone. She'd known before she had arrived that he was gone, but seeing it hurt because, she knew in her heart that he wasn't coming back.

Her toothbrush, right where she'd left it. Her deodorant. Some make-up. The earring she'd lost in his bed the night they…

She sagged against the bathroom door and cried. The tears were, in part, brought on by how much she missed him, but mostly she was crying because she had only just realized the impact her life had had on his. A toothbrush. A few articles of clothing. A lost earring. That was all there was to their relationship, all that was left of the last year of her life. Was this all people meant to each other?

_I want to spend the rest of my life with you… _His words. The look on his face when he'd said them. But how could he want to marry her? He wasn't even responsible enough to put his dirty cup in the sink before taking off in the middle of the night! What was he going to do with his furniture, the food in his cupboards? I hadn't appeared as if he'd taken more than a handful of CD's, maybe a couple of books from the shelf, one or two movies. What was he going to do with the rest of it? Let it sit and collect dust?

Or did he expect _her_ to deal with it? There was no one else she could think of, but it wasn't her responsibility, it was his, only he was half a world away in Wales.

Allison picked herself up off the bathroom floor and walked back into the living room. She'd lent him a CD a few weeks ago. A DVD. She collected them and put them with the rest of her things. _Not even enough stuff for a box…_

The knock at Robert's door startled her and for half a second her breath caught. But Robert wouldn't knock on his own door. She opened it to find Foreman standing there.

He smiled, "Hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"He's gone. He left this morning, I think."

Foreman's brows knit together, "He said he wasn't leaving until tomorrow… wait. He left and you're still here?"

"I just came to get my things."

"You're not going with him, are you?"

"I have a life, Foreman. It's here. Here is where I belong." Suddenly she was aware of the way he was looking at her and why. She'd made that statement standing the doorway of Robert's apartment. "You know what I meant."

"Yeah. I think I do. I guess I'll see you at work."

"Foreman," she caught his arm. "Just say it."

"I think you're making a mistake. Happy?"

"I _love_ my job. I love my life. I don't want to move half way around the world just to follow somebody else's dream."

"Which one of us are you trying to convince, Allison?"

She stopped; he never called her by her first name. "Well it doesn't matter. He left."

Foreman just continued looking at her.

"I made my decision. Time to move on." She gathered up her few belongings and took a last look around before setting her key on the counter near the door.

…………………………………………………….

**Cardiff, Wales (UK): **

"Damn," Bobby cursed as the body shattered under his touch. He shot an apologetic look to Liz Shaw, but she didn't seem offended by either the curse or sudden dust cloud. "Sorry," he said anyway.

"Right. I'll just go see if I can find a dustpan," Ianto commented from the living room doorway.

"Oiy, what a mess," Gwen joined them. "Is… erm… _was_ that our victim?" she asked as Ianto ducked out of the kitchen.

"It was," Liz confirmed.

"Sorry," Bobby muttered again.

"Should've been there for the mess I made on my first day," Gwen gave him a smile. "Come on, let's get that lot bagged up. There's nothing here of any interest except him."

"You sure?" Bobby asked her.

"I was with the police for a few years, I know how to search a house, mate," her tone was indignant.

"Sorry," he said yet again. Then he realized she was smiling. Teasing him. He'd seen a good deal of good natured banter being tossed around by the rest of them, even in the face of something like this… _or maybe especially in the face of it. _He was having a hard time imagining coming to work every day and seeing stuff like this.

"Here we are," Ianto returned with a broom and dustpan; when the rest of them gave him a glare he asked "What?" with a slightly hurt expression. "Would you prefer I go look for a vacuum, then?"

"That'll do just fine," Liz took it from him, "Although I must say this is the most unconventional crime scene clean up I've ever been party to," she handed the broom to Robert. "You sweep, I'll bag."

"How's it coming…?" Jack came in the back door. "Oh. Well."

"I took photos," Bobby offered up hopefully.

"Right. Good thinking. Gwen, Ianto, anything?"

"Ordinary house belonging to an ordinary man who lived an ordinary life," said Gwen.

"So why did he die such an extraordinary death?" Jack wondered aloud.

………………………………………………………….

"You sure you don't want to get some sleep?" Liz asked as she and Bobby began laying the bags out on the exam table.

"I got some sleep on the plane," he lied. He'd most of the trip reading UNIT files because every time he shut his eyes, he saw Allison's face, heard her voice telling him she didn't love him. Working was better than remembering the last time they'd laughed together, the last time they'd cried. It was better than sitting around wondering how he could ever have misjudged her feelings so badly. "I'm fine, really," he said in response to the mother-hen look he realized Liz was giving him.

"All right, but if you get tired, I want you to go lie down and take a nap. It's not as if this poor fellow is going anywhere or getting any worse."

"I suppose there's that – unless whatever did this to him is still out there."

"There's a rather unsavoury thought," Liz agreed. "And probably not how you'd imagined starting a new job."

"I hadn't thought about it much really," he told her honestly as they both donned lab coats. "Although I suppose if I had, this wouldn't have been the first thing to spring to mind," he gave her a half smile and slid the mask into place before opening the first bag. The body was dust and charred bone fragments, most pieces not more than few inches long. He picked up a bit of jaw bone with a single blackened tooth still in it, puzzling over what had killed the man. "The heat necessary to burn human bone like this is what, over two thousand degrees Fahrenheit?"

"If you've got a couple of hours," Liz was examining another fragment under a large magnifying glass. "To do this in the sort of time period we're working with would require an awful lot more heat. Or possibly some sort of chemical reaction. What do you say we start by trying to answer that question and see where it leads us?"

"You're the expert."

She looked up at him, "Yes. But this is your lab now."

He swallowed. She was right, but having someone like Elizabeth Shaw defer to him… "All right." He thought for a moment and then suggested that they take one of the samples he'd collected before the body disintegrated and run it for a chemical analysis to see if anything unusual popped up.

…………………………………….

Up above, in the main Hub, Gwen was going through the victim's life on her computer. "Harold Miller, age fifty seven. Civil engineer. Widower. Survived by a daughter, divorced, and two grandchildren. I imagine the police have notified the family ?"

Jack nodded. He would have rather they didn't, not until he had some answers, but with the crowd outside Miller's house, it was inevitable that someone would call the daughter. "According to the neighbour, there was nothing unusual about the day – thanks," he smiled his infinite gratitude at Ianto for the coffee the younger man pressed into his hands.

"Thank you, Ianto," Gwen echoed the sentiment with a shy smile. It was the same shy smile she'd been favouring him with ever since it became obvious that he no longer left the Hub at night. "Mr. Miller didn't have so much as an outstanding parking ticket. I'll put together a file of his life anyway, but I don't think we're going to find any answers in his past."

"Random occurrence then?" Ianto inquired, taking a sip from his own mug.

"According to the neighbour, Selma Peterson, she saw a 'strange blue light' coming from Miller's kitchen and came over to check on him. The back door was unlocked, which was normal, apparently, so she let herself in. He was already in the state we found him in. She'd seen him just half an hour earlier taking something out to the bin."

"Oh, what a dreadful thing to walk in on," Gwen's tone was full of sympathy for the woman who'd found Miller. "What could turn a human being to a pile of ash in less than half an hour?"

"Spontaneous human combustion?" Ianto said then.

"There's no such thing. Is there?" Gwen looked up at Jack.

"No. Where does the daughter live?"

"Barry."

"All right. Ianto, tomorrow I want you and Bobby to go talk to her; lay on that considerable charm of yours," he added with a smile. He continued in a more serious tone, however, "I want to know if he came into possession of anything unusual in the last month, something he bought or found or someone gave him. Anything.

"Hopefully this is a one-time incident, but if it isn't, I want some idea of what we're really dealing with. Go back over rift activity for the past month, to see if anything lines up. I know it's been quiet, but maybe that's it, it's been too quiet. Then get some sleep. Both of you," he gave Gwen a look.

Before he left them to it, Jack placed his hand lightly on Ianto's hip, drawing the younger man just a couple of inches closer and loving the way Ianto half closed his eyes and smiled in response; they both knew they weren't going to get any closer than this until they were alone again.

While Gwen and Ianto went to work on their prospective tasks, Jack went over to Tosh's old station to look for any kind of alien energy signatures that might have shown up on the system in or around Miller's house tonight. There was a very distinct spike the corresponded with the time of Mr. Miller's death, but it wasn't anything he recognized. That worried him. He started working back through the system to see if anything like it had happened before and he just didn't remember, because two thousand years was a long time and he realized he couldn't always trust his memory. That worried him too.

……………………………………….

"Jack," Ianto laid a hand on the other's back. "It's late. Let's go to bed. Gwen left an hour ago," he added.

"So why are you still up?"

"Your Dr. Chase was keeping me occupied."

"I beg your pardon?"

Ianto chuckled; he'd chosen his words to illicit the response he'd just gotten. "I was planning on getting him into the system tomorrow but seeing as he's here today – which is I suppose yesterday now – I wanted to get that taken care of before driving down to Barry."

"It could have waited."

"Well it's done now. He and Liz are about to leave for the night as well. She's agreed to drop him by my flat, although I think that was mostly so I could drag you off to bed."

Jack's whole demeanor changed, "Oh really now? Is that a proposition?"

"Would you like it to be?"

Jack just laughed and accepted the kiss Ianto gave him. They barely noticed Liz and Bobby slipping out of the Hub…

……………………………………………….

Bobby looked around the immaculate little apartment. He could easily imagine a man like Ianto Jones living here. He dropped his bags in the bedroom and took a shower; the hot water felt good after a long day. By the time he fell onto the crisp cotton sheets, he was finally tired enough to sleep.

……………………………………….

**Princeton, NJ (USA):**

Allison Cameron stared at her computer screen and the email she'd written. She hit the 'cancel message' button. She was probably the last person Robert wanted to hear from right now.

She looked down at the folded piece of paper she'd found in the DVD she'd retrieved from his apartment.

_Dear Allison,_

_I know it's over, please keep reading, this isn't one of those pathetic 'I want you back' sorts of letters. I realize there never was even an 'it' or an 'us' to begin with, so rather than being over, it just never was. But I do love you and your not loving me doesn't change a thing. I can live with that._

_I just wanted to say goodbye and to thank you for being a friend. You're a beautiful woman, Allison. Don't be afraid to open yourself up to somebody. No one should live their whole life all alone and work isn't enough. Friends aren't enough. Find somebody and love them. _

_There is so much to the Universe that you don't see, that you don't know. So much out there, some of it beautiful, some of it terrible but all of it amazing. Find somebody to share it with._

_If I don't see you again, have a good life. You deserve it._

_Yours,_

_Robert_


	6. Chapter 5

****

Chapter Five: Morning

* * *

**Cardiff, Wales (UK):**

Awakened by a loud banging, Bobby hauled himself up into a sitting position in the unfamiliar bed. It took several moments for him to orient himself to his surroundings and remember how he had gotten here. Liz. Jack. _Bloody pterodactyls_.

The knock came again.

"Dr. Chase?" he recognized Ianto's voice.

Bobby got out of the bed and fumbled in his suitcase for his bathrobe. He heard the front door opening.

"Are you awake?" Ianto called out tentatively.

"Yeah. Be right out." He pulled the terrycloth robe around his shoulders before walking into the living room.

Ianto was standing there with a warm smile and a cup of coffee. "Good morning, Sir. Coffee?"

"Yeah. Thanks." He didn't even try to match the other's cheerful tone; it was too early for congeniality. He did, however, accept the cup. A quick glance at the clock revealed that it wasn't as early as he'd originally thought; it was nearly nine-thirty. "Guess I should have set the alarm. Sorry."

"No worries."

"Thanks for letting me stay here last night," Bobby took a seat on the sofa. "I hate hotels. Hate hotel coffee," he offered up what he hoped was a more friendly smile. It was hard to read the Welshman.

"It was my pleasure, Dr. Chase." Ianto remained standing, his hands lightly clasped in front of him. "We can go shopping after we get back from Barry, if you'd like and I can show you around Cardiff a little."

Bobby looked up at him, "Are you always like this?"

"Like what, Sir?"

"Like that."

"You mean polite?" Ianto returned the baffled look.

"I mean _too_ polite."

"Right. Well. Do you prefer Robert or Bobby, then?"

He took another long drink of coffee before telling him that Bobby would be fine.

"Doubtful you'll get Jack to call you anything else, anyway," the other man gave him a wry smile that at least seemed more relaxed.

Bobby smiled back, hoping it was a good sign. He couldn't honestly imagine what it must be like for them, having someone new come in to fill the shoes of a dead colleague. "I should get dressed," he said as he stood up. "I won't be long."

Ianto just nodded and took a seat on the sofa to wait.

"No one mentioned what time we're supposed to start in the morning," Bobby said over his shoulder as he headed into the bedroom.

"Eight o'clock, usually. But it was a late night. Jack said we should all get in a couple of extra hours' sleep."

"Remind me to thank him." Bobby hefted his suitcase up onto the bed and thumbed through his work shirts, realizing that he had no idea what he should wear in to his official first day of work. "What kind of dress code does Jack enforce?" he called out to the living room.

"You _have _seen the way he dresses, right?" Ianto replied with an audible grin.

"Yeah. But then there's you." Bobby pulled out the plain blue dress shirt he usually wore with either the blue striped tie or the plain yellow one, and the striped shirt that he liked better because it was more comfortable because it was softer cotton. Neither shirt would make any difference to his current patient, but he wanted to make a better first impression than he figured he'd made last night.

"What Gwen showed up in last night is typical of her work attire," Ianto answered his question. His voice seemed louder, like he was standing by the door.

"I take it ties are optional?" he asked. If Gwen's T-shirt and jeans were any indication of typical 'office' attire, he could probably get away with just about anything in his suitcase. He noticed that there had been a longer than expected silence on the other end of the conversation. "Ianto?" He poked his head out the bedroom door. The younger man was leaning up against the wall next to it, politely facing away from the bedroom.

"Sorry. Owen never wore a tie. I'm not even certain he owned more than one dress shirt." He smiled then, probably at some memory, or maybe a collection of them, then turned to Bobby. "Whatever you want to wear is fine, honestly. Although I would suggest more than that unless you want Jack hovering around you all day."

Bobby chuckled. "Mind if I ask how long you two've been… I'm sorry_ is_ dating the right word?" he ducked back into the bedroom.

"It has been for a while. About a year, I suppose. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious," Bobby chose the striped shirt because it was comfortable but decided to wear a tie because he didn't want to remind the rest of them too much of their deceased colleague. The temptation for causal proved too much and he slipped into a pair of faded jeans instead of dress slacks. The dark blue jacket made him feel better about the image he'd present when interviewing some poor woman whose father had been reduced to a pile of ash. He stepped out of the bedroom, "Acceptable?"

"Quite."

He headed for the bathroom across the hall to shave and brush his teeth.

"Did you know Jack well, then? In London, I mean," Ianto asked.

"Not as well as he would've liked," he shot the Welshman a smile in the mirror as he unpacked his toiletries.

Ianto's only response was a soft laugh.

"You really aren't the jealous type, are you?"

"I've my moments," Ianto admitted, "But there's not much point to being jealous where Jack is concerned. It's not as if he's going to change."

"I guess not. I won't be much longer."

"Take your time." Ianto wandered back towards the living room to give the other man some privacy. He certainly didn't like to shave with Jack hovering over him, although that had more to do with what the other man could be like when they were standing together half naked in the bathroom.

Ianto found himself smiling when he thought about the last few weeks living with Jack. In some ways it was the most extraordinary thing that had ever happened to him, and yet at the same time it was so incredibly normal to share all the little moments of his life with the man he loved. _As long as one doesn't dwell on the pet pterodactyl we have flying around…_ He looked up as the blond Australian emerged from the bathroom, clean shaven and with his hair still falling around his face. "Ready?" Ianto got back to his feet.

"As I'll ever be."

"Good. Here, before I forget," he reached into his inner jacket pocket and handed over an envelope.

"What's this?"

"ID, proof of medical license, drivers' licence, and a small advance on your first pay to help you settle in," he explained as the other man thumbed through the contents of the envelope.

Bobby flipped through the ID's; there was the one he'd expected that identified him as a Torchwood employee, but there were also several others. "What's with all this? Gas, phone, electric, _building code inspector_?" That one seemed the least credible, although it looked completely authentic.

Ianto gave him a wry grin, "One never knows when one will need to employ a bit of subterfuge in order to gain access somewhere."

"But a building code inspector?" he asked again, following Ianto out of the apartment.

"Saying you're with Torchwood is good for dealing with the police and military, but sometimes it's best _not_ to tell the average person that you're looking for the alien that's eaten their cat. Better to say you need to check for a crack in the foundation."

"Which I suppose is still better than just breaking in," Bobby replied. Ianto was giving him a look. "You wouldn't believe how many patients' homes I had to break into for my old boss."

"I had no idea practicing medicine in the States involved breaking and entering."

"It all depends on who you work for." They'd reached the street. Bobby held up the drivers' licence. "So does this mean I can drive?"

"If you'd like," Ianto surrendered the keys to his car without flinching.

"You're serious?" he hadn't expected a 'yes.'

"My insurance is paid up."

Bobby looked at him, "I'm really a registered driver in the UK? No paperwork, no nothing?"

"Jack calls it the beauty of the computer age. Anything can be altered with a few strokes of the keys. I've also taken the liberty of removing your name from the UNIT list. Can't have them ringing you up in the middle of the next alien invasion and expecting you to lend them a hand."

Bobby chuckled wryly; he could imagine Jack's reaction if they did.

Ianto climbed into the passenger side. He handed Bobby the new, black, compact mobile phone he'd left sitting in the centre console. "Most American models don't work in Europe." he explained. "I've programmed in our numbers. Gwen's husband Rhys does know what we do, by the way, but in general it's best _not_ to tell friends and family that you catch aliens for a living."

"Gosh, I can't imagine why."

Ianto gave what looked like an approving smile to his sarcastic tone. "Would you like me to go ahead and program the numbers from your old phone in for you while you drive?"

"No. Thanks."

The younger man him a questioning look.

"I said my goodbyes before I left," he said as he took a moment to become acquainted with the car before trying to pull out into traffic; driving on the opposite of the road would take some getting used to. "And like you said, it's not like I can tell anyone I'm catching aliens for a living." He didn't mean for his tone to be so dark; it wasn't the secretiveness of his new job that bothered him.

If Ianto thought anything of his tone, he gave no indication. "Whenever you're ready, then," he nodded to indicate that the street was clear. "You'll be making a left at the first corner. I've also picked up some real estate brochures for you. You're welcome to my flat as long as you like of course," he added. "But I thought you might want to check out some of the new apartments that just opened up in the city centre."

"Is there anything you don't think of?"

"Not usually."

Bobby gave him another look, but it didn't seem as if the other man was kidding.

They spent the remainder of the thirty minute drive engaged in small talk, which quickly turned into a discussion about bowling. By the time they were pulling up to the home of Miller's daughter, Ms. Priscilla Doyle, it had been agreed that as soon as this business was settled, Torchwood was going to have another bowling night.

"Although I should warn you," Bobby said with a wry grin, "My best score is something like 290, and I never bowl less than 260."

"Looks like we're evenly matched then," Ianto countered with a grin of his own.

Robert laughed. "So, what's the standard procedure here?" he asked as he slid out of the car.

"I don't think we've ever established one."

"Right." Just like with House. Wing it. He noticed that another car was pulling up across the street; a couple in their thirties got out and made their way towards Doyle's front porch, seeming oblivious of he and Ianto. The woman was carrying a casserole dish.

"There's a grey case in the trunk," Ianto told him.

Bobby gave him a look.

"Consider it an emergency field kit," he flashed a wry smile.

"There really isn't anything you don't think of, is there?"

"Well I _have_ managed to keep Jack on his toes for almost two years now."

……………………………………………………

**Princeton, NJ (USA):**

Allison looked out her living room window at the pre-dawn gloom. Somewhere beyond the city was the Atlantic Ocean and somewhere beyond that was Robert. What was he doing, she wondered. Having coffee with new colleagues maybe? Or was he taking a couple of days off to adjust to a new country? _No, he's probably working,_ she thought. She just wished she knew doing what.

She sat down at her computer and searched for the Torchwood Institute again, and again she came up with nothing. House was right; the place didn't exist.

But it had to exist. She'd seen the letter they sent Robert.

"I'm just letting House get to me," she said aloud. "Just like always." Of course Torchwood existed. They had a letterhead. A phone number. Just no website.

She went back to the people-search web page and typed in the name Jack Harkness.

Nothing.

Jones. Ianto Jones. There were a million Joneses in Wales. She narrowed it down to the city of Cardiff. "Slightly less than a million, anyway," Allison sighed. It was still too many to go and call all of them. "Which would be completely obsessive," she told herself.

She stared at the screen until her coffee was cold. "Ok, this is stupid." But before shutting down her computer, she sent Robert a short email. After all, even if she'd broken up with him, there was nothing wrong with wanting to know that his plane had landed safely or to tell him where she'd left his house key. "Common courtesy." She assured herself. Civility between former colleagues. "I'm sure he'd do the same thing if he were me."

………………………………………………….

**Barry, Wales (UK):**

With just a little charm, Ianto persuaded Priscilla Doyle to give them a few minutes of her time away from her guests. Bobby noted the way the Welshman didn't actually say where they were from, just that they were investigating her father's death and needed to ask a few questions. She led them into a neat little kitchen decorated in shades of mauve and peach. She offered them a seat at the table, apologizing for the dishes still dirty in the sink. "I just haven't had the strength this morning"

"No apologies necessary, Ma'am," Ianto told her in a kind tone. "Would you mind if my colleague has a look around the premises?" he inquired further, ignoring the slightly panicked look Bobby shot him.

"I don't see how that would help," Doyle objected, although only mildly. She was a woman of thirty something, married and divorced, the mother of two daughters, and on the whole just as unremarkable as her father. "My father hardly ever visited here."

"We never really know what's going to help," Ianto countered smoothly. "Assuming you've nothing you'd object to us finding, that is," he added with a calculated look as he flipped open one of those little notebooks like the kind police often used. It really was amazing what people would assume if you let them.

"No, of course not."

"Well then, Dr. Chase…?"

"Right." Bobby's smile seemed forced even to him. He made his way into the next room, trying to decide what he should do. To buy himself some time, he wove his way through the living room glancing at the collection of very ordinary looking photos and books on the shelves. There was one shelf dedicated solely to school awards, the show place of a proud mother, but it hardly seemed interesting or alien.

Six people sat in the living room with him, all looking mildly uncomfortable to have a stranger inspecting the details of the room. He looked them over as well, although tried to be surreptitious about it. Nothing jumped out at him as weird or alien about them, either.

_However somehow I don't think it's ever as easy as having 'Made on Mars' stamped on somebody's forehead. _

He picked up a picture of Harold Miller in healthier days laughing with a pair of girls on a beach somewhere.

"That was last summer, Detective," said a voice at his elbow. It belonged to woman of about twenty with short dark hair, deep red lips, and a little too much eye make up for his taste. "That's Maggie and Pippa," she pointed out each in turn; Maggie was the fairer haired, younger looking of the two, seven or eight, Bobby guessed. Lauren looked about twelve.

"They're lovely girls. And I'm a doctor, by the way, not a detective," he corrected her with a polite smile, putting the photo back on the shelf. "Bobby Chase," he added; Ianto hadn't hesitated to use their real names, and every piece of ID the Welshman had provided him with bore his real name as well, so it seemed appropriate.

"And you're Australian," she smiled a smile he was familiar with; most American women liked his accent, too.

"You caught me, I'm Aussie," he grinned back at her, trying to recall if he'd ever actually used that term to refer to himself before. Or at least before House.

"What are you looking for, then Dr. Bobby Chase from Australia?"

He gave a shrug, "Just looking around."

"Is it true that Mr. Miller was murdered?"

"Rhianna!" An older woman chided in a sharp tone. "Let the man do his job."

"I_ just_ asked a question."

"Did you know Mr. Miller?" Bobby asked Rhianna.

"Not really. He'd only come around when the girls had a birthday, or maybe at Christmas." She lowered her voice, "I don't think he and Ms. Doyle got on."

"Rhianna!" the older woman overheard anyway. The rest of the guests were pretending not to notice, especially the couple who had brought the casserole.

Bobby ignored them, "Do you know the family well?" he pressed Rhianna.

"I used to babysit for the girls. I still do when I'm home on holiday. We live just up the way," she gave the older woman a dark look, essentially confirming Bobby's suspicions that they were mother and daughter.

"Where are the girls now?" he asked.

"Probably in their rooms. This has hit them really hard."

"I'd like to meet them. Would you mind?"

"I hardly think Priscilla would approve," the mother countered.

"Well she's not here, is she?" He shot a calculated wink at Rhianna who stifled a laugh. He could feel guilty about flirting with a twenty-something university student later. He wasn't even sure there was anything to feel guilty over. It wasn't as if he was seeing someone.

……………………………………………..

"Girls…?" Priscilla Doyle put in an appearance shortly after Bobby got into their room. Bobby had no doubt that Rhianna's mother had run for her as soon as Rhianna lead him upstairs. Ianto was just behind Doyle.

"I was showing Dr. Chase a picture I drew of Grandpa," Pippa told her mother, showing it to her as well.

"That's very sweet…" Priscilla Doyle faltered.

Bobby caught Ianto's eye, "The girls were just telling me about some of the walks along the beach their grandfather used to take them on. A couple of weeks ago they found some crystals."

"Just coloured glass," their mother corrected. "Really girls, you shouldn't go telling stories." Priscilla sounded embarrassed. "I really have to get back to my guests."

"We can see ourselves out," Ianto told her.

"I… I really should…"

"I don't mind sitting with the girls a few minutes, Ms. Doyle," Rhianna offered. Bobby suspected she was more interested in sitting with him, but there was something flattering about having a girl ten years his junior flirting with him.

"I… really… well… all right. But just a few minutes," Doyle glanced Bobby and Ianto each in turn. "It's been a very hectic morning."

Bobby didn't' miss the exasperated look Rhianna couldn't quite keep off her face. Despite his suspicions about her motives, he shot her a smile of gratitude for helping them get the mother to go away, and turned his attention back to the crystals Maggie had stored in an old cigar box along with some seashells and a pressed flower. All treasures from her walks with her grandfather. "Those are very pretty," he said to Maggie pointing to the translucent stones. They definitely didn't look like anything he'd seen before, except at Miller's place. He remembered something similar but larger sitting on the kitchen windowsill… _but I'm not exactly a rock expert,_ he reminded himself. For the first time, he wished he'd paid just a little attention to Allison's crazy friend Heather, the one who was into crystals and herbs and all kinds of other weird stuff. "Do you remember where exactly you found them?"

"By the old man tree," Pippa chimed in. "That's what we called it. It's just past the big rock. On the island," she added.

Bobby glanced at Rhianna wondering if she might have a better idea, but she shook her head; apparently their names didn't mean anything to her either. "Do you mind if I take a closer look at them?" he asked the child.

She shook her head, silently giving him permission to go ahead.

Carefully, he picked up one of the stones; it was cool to the touch and smooth. Maybe it really was just coloured glass.

"We should probably get going," Ianto suggested.

Bobby nodded, "Well, thank you for talking to us," he said to both Pippa and Maggie. He stood up and cast a slight smile to Rhianna, too.

"Like I said, we live just up the way," Rhianna said with a smile of her own.


	7. Chapter 6

Thank you for all the great reviews. I really appreciate them and being added to alert / fave lists.

* * *

**Chapter Six: Business as Usual **

* * *

**Cardiff, Wales (UK): **

By the time Ianto and Bobby returned, Liz had finished up the last of the tests they'd begun the night before. Bobby was more than happy to let her present their work to the rest of the team, who gathered in the conference room while Ianto passed out the coffee.

"Whatever caused Mr. Miller's death, it wasn't chemical. There are residual traces of some sort of energy, but it's nothing I can identify." With a few keystrokes to her laptop, Liz brought the image of a wave pattern up on screen at the wall.

"Terrestrial?" Jack asked.

"I have no way of saying for certain. But I'm sure you've noticed it matches the energy spike you detected last night."

"Is there any way to predict future spikes?" Gwen wanted to know.

Jack and Liz both shook their heads.

"The best we can do is monitor for another one," Jack told her, "And hope it doesn't happen."

"Don't you dare say case closed," Gwen threatened him.

"I'd like a better idea of what really caused this before I do that," he assured her. "But for the moment, there isn't much more we can do."

"So what now?" Bobby asked without thinking. Unlike his first day with House's team, no one made any snide remarks or put him down for asking dumb questions or being the 'new guy.'

Jack's expression, however, made him much more nervous than if he had started acting like House.

"Now, you and I are going to go downstairs for a little target practice. Gwen, keep on top of the police reports, I want to know if we get another body like Harold Miller. Ianto, there was that incident this morning that I said could wait until later… nothing to worry about," he added at Bobby's questioning look. "I'd just like it cleaned up before end of business today." After seeing Ianto's nod, he turned his attention to Liz. "You're probably about ready to pack your stuff up and head home, huh?"

"I'd like to see this through. Besides, I've got a few autopsies from last week I should clear out before heading off. Assuming you don't mind having me around for a few more days."

Bobby wasn't sure if she was staying for his benefit or if she honestly just wanted to, but he was glad to have her. However, he realized it wasn't his call. He glanced at Jack, who glanced at him. No one said anything for several heartbeats.

Finally, Jack spoke, "You can stay as long as you like. So long as the new medic doesn't object…?"

Bobby swallowed nervously, suddenly feeling both put on the spot and like an idiot. "Not at all. It's been a pleasure working with you," he added awkwardly in Liz's direction.

She gave him a kind smile.

"Good," Jack drained his cup. "Gwen, would you help Bobby get everything out of the armoury and take it down to the practice range?"

"_Everything?"_ she asked.

"Yes. Everything. Although I suppose you can skip the really big guns. Wouldn't want to accidently blow up the Hub," he winked at Ianto.

The Welshman groaned in response.

Gwen just shook her head and shot Bobby a sympathetic look as she showed him the way down to the armoury.

After Liz excused herself get back to work, Jack looked at Ianto. "So?" he asked.

"So?"

"What do you think?" he nodded towards Bobby who was downstairs with Gwen, currently having his arms loaded up with weapons and ammunition.

"I think… I think I'm surprised you're asking my opinion." The younger man replied honestly. Jack had brought both him and Gwen on board without asking anyone what they thought of it. He found Jack's gaze on him and he could see it in Jack's eyes: Owen and Tosh's death still haunted him. Ianto gave Jack what he hoped was a warm, reassuring smile, "The end is where we start from, right?"

………………………………………………

Bobby's arms ached with fatigue and he was so used to Jack breathing instructions right into his ear that he didn't even pay attention to just how close the Captain was standing to him or how dangerously tight those hands were on his hips. He was even almost immune to the intoxicating scent that only got stronger whenever Jack smiled his approval at a particularly good round of shots. It felt as if he'd fired every weapon in the armoury.

"I see you give everyone's training the same personal attention." The sound of Gwen's voice made Bobby jump, although he was grateful it was her and not Ianto. He really didn't want to try and explain to the Welshman just exactly why Jack was standing there with one arm around his waist, positioning his body just so, while the other hand guided his arm.

Jack just grinned over his shoulder at the interloper, "It wouldn't be fair of me to play favourites."

"I wouldn't let Ianto hear you saying that if I were you," she was just as quick as he'd been with her rebuttal.

"Did you have something for me?" Jack let Bobby go, telling him he could take five.

"Rift spike," Gwen answered. "Near the university."

"Big?"

"Nothing Ianto and I can't handle. You do seem to have your hands full here, after all," her tone was mischievous.

Bobby felt a rush of warmth to his cheeks. Gwen just grinned and assured him that no, really, Jack was like this with everybody. "I don't even take it as a compliment any more," she added with a playful wink towards the Captain.

"I'm hurt."

"You ought to be," Gwen told him. "We'll report back if we find anything major." she added on her way out the door. "Have fun, boys."

Jack just laughed and stood back, telling Bobby to get back to work. "Let's see if you can do it without me standing over your shoulder this time."

"Jack, I can barely hold this my arms up."

Jack put his hands on his hips and glared at the younger man. "Do you think that some alien is going to give you time to catch your breath?" the humour was gone from Jack's voice. "Do you think that a Dalek or Cyberman or Sontaran is going to stop attacking _just _because you're tired? Did that Dagon stop just because you were scared?" It wasn't his tone so much as the anger in his eyes that startled the young doctor. "Your life – _**their **_lives – depend on you being able to do your job. If you can't hack it, you'd better tell me now so we can both stop wasting our time."

Bobby swallowed. "I'm sorry."

He turned away from him a moment, his hands still resting on his hips. "No. I am. It's just… sometimes it gets to me." He closed his eyes and took a breath, trying to calm down.

He was startled by the gentleness of the other man's hand on his shoulder.

"I understand. And you're right, Jack. They don't ever let up."

Jack looked the younger man straight in the eye. "No. You _don't_ understand. You, Gwen, Ianto, Liz… "

"We can get hurt, even die," Bobby finished it for him. "You can jump out in between some poor stupid kid and a laser and take the shot for him and survive. You have to live with the fact that you can't die."

"Not ever."

"Not ever?"

Jack shook his head. Then he smiled, just a little, "Although I do have it on good authority that I actually may someday."

"Probably a long time from now."

He nodded.

"Jack, I'm here because I want to be here. I hardly know Gwen or Ianto well enough to speak for them, but I'm pretty sure they're here because they want to be here too. If I know the risks after one day, I'm sure they know them even better. And even if it wasn't going to kill you, you didn't have to take that shot for me. But you did. That's why I'm here, to be a part of something important. To be with you."

Jack gave him a lascivious grin, "Oh really now."

"Don't get any ideas, Captain," Bobby warned him, unable to help the grin on his own face. He'd walked into that one and he knew it.

"Come on. Let's pack this in and see if Liz wants to go get some lunch. You're right," he added before the other could speak, "You've had enough for one day. Wouldn't want to push you so hard you couldn't lift your arms in a real fight if Gwen and Ianto need back up. Or if something else happens before they get back. Besides, if we get these cleaned and put away it'll be one less thing Ianto has to do before coming to bed tonight," he added with a smile that left no doubting what he was really saying.

Bobby chuckled and followed Jack's instructions for disassembling and cleaning the firearms.

While they worked, Jack spoke, "There are a couple of rules we should go over. Number one: never, ever fool around with the rift manipulator."

"The what?"

"I'll show you. The point is, we monitor the rift, we don't mess with it. _Ever._ No matter what. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Number two: under no circumstances does anyone take anything alien out of the Hub without my express permission. No exceptions."

Bobby nodded.

"Number three: what I said before about your life, their lives, depending on you being able to do your job…?" He waited until Bobby had nodded to indicate that he recalled the earlier conversation before continuing, "We depend on each other, even me because even if I can't die, I _can_ get hurt and nothing hurts me more than losing a member of my team.

"If you can't do your job for any reason, you tell me_ before_ it becomes an issue. I'd like to think that there isn't anything we can't work out, but I can't help you with something if I don't know about it. I promise I won't ever judge you – any of you. I've made mistakes too," he added. "I just need to know what's going on in your life that could affect your job here."

"Fair enough."

"Number four goes along with number three. I'm sure you've heard the saying about loose lips and sinking ships? I think they got it wrong. People get hurt when we keep secrets from each other. I'm not saying your private life is anybody's business but your own," he said then to the other man's look. "I'm just saying that secrets hurt everybody."

"Does that include your secrets, Captain?"

Jack chuckled, "It would take you three lifetimes to hear all of my secrets. Suffice it to say if it's important, I promise, I'll tell you. All of you. I expect the same from each member of my team. If that's not something you can live with…" he let his voice trail off.

"Jack, just before I came here, the woman I loved, the woman I _still_ love, told me that she didn't love me. I'd told her I wanted to marry her someday and her response was to pack up all the things I've left at her apartment over the past year and handed them all back to me.

"I didn't even go through the basket, I just pulled all my clothing out of the drawers, off the hangers, stuffed it into my luggage and drove to the airport. I had to take three connecting flights to get here, but I just wanted to get away from there, away from everything that… that reminded me of how raw having her say she didn't love me left me feeing inside. And I still love her," he shook his head. He realized he'd stopped working while he talked and got back to cleaning the gun.

Jack reached over and touched his arm, "I'm sorry."

"It's nothing to do with you and at least I found out before I'd wasted any more of my life with someone who would probably never love me the way I love her." Bobby thought back to how long it had taken him to get to Allison, how long she'd denied she had any feelings for him at all, even to admit that she liked him. _I really must be the world's biggest sap, _he thought. He hadn't even returned the ring, he'd just tossed it into his bed stand drawer and left. It wasn't like he really needed the money. "Before I left the States, I closed my retirement account and shifted everything around because I know I the likelihood of retiring from this place is slim and don't give me that look, I'm not suicidal," he added. "If anything this job makes me appreciate life more. You've given me the opportunity to see the big picture and believe me, I want to be around to see it all. I'm just realistic enough to understand that you're not going to always be there to stand in between me and an alien with a gun."

"It's not all bad out there, you know."

"I know. That's why I'm here. It probably won't be my children or my grand children who reach the stars, but maybe Allison's will. Maybe she'll get married and have a life and someday her children and grandchildren will be out there and they won't know that I had anything to do with the big picture, but I do. That's my big secret. I'm not doing this for me, not any more, not like I thought I would be when you offered me this job. I'm doing this because I still love her and I want her children to move out into the universe and… and do whatever it is we're going to be doing in the future," he gave Jack a wry smile that made the Captain laugh.

"It's worth it," he said. "Out there… it's worth it."

Bobby was about to say more when they both turned at the sound of Liz's voice at the top of the stair. "Jack!" she hollered down.

"You really should consider an intercom," Bobby told him.

The older man sighed and gave the younger a dark look, "You and Ianto, always complaining about the lack of little conveniences when we're surrounded by all this alien technology."

"So why not install an intercom?" he quipped with a smile.

"Jack!"

"Yeah?" he called up to her. Liz was already half way down the steps. "What is it?"

"There seems to be a Weevil on the loose near the city centre."

"I thought they were mostly nocturnal," said Bobby.

"Usually they are," he agreed. "But rule number five is that you can never really count on anything going quite the way you planned it to go."

"I should think that would be rule number one," Liz observed from the bottom of the stairs.

Jack shot her a look; apparently everybody was in a sarcastic mood this week. "All right, Bobby, looks like you're getting your first lesson in Weevil hunting."

"Can't wait," his tone was dry enough to make Jack laugh again.

"Would you like a hand?" Liz asked. "I'm just about done with that autopsy."

"With the way this day is going?" said Jack, getting to his feet. "You'd better stay here in case something _else_ happens. But…erm… if you wouldn't mind putting these away…" he gave her an apologetic look.

"Consider it done, Captain."

……………………………………..

Jack spotted Gwen's former police partner waiting for them along with another officer at the entrance to the arcade. "Well if it isn't my favourite constable," Jack gave the young man a warm grin.

"Captain," Andy's tone was less than welcoming.

Jack had already turned his attention to the attractive red haired woman next to Andy. "And this is…?"

She blushed under his gaze. "PC Sandra Taylor. Captain Harkness, I presume?" she held out her hand.

"You can call me Jack," his smile deepened. "In fact you can call me anything, any time."

Bobby cleared his throat, "There was some kind a disturbance?"

Andy answered, "Some sort of lunatic running around behind some of the shops. It sounded a little weird. You know, your kind of weird. I figured we should call you because you'd just come in and take over, anyway."

"Which way?" Jack inquired, not quite taking his eyes off the redhead.

………………………………………………..

"So… what exactly…. do we do now?" Bobby was completely out of breath when they finally cornered the Weevil in a dead end; it had led them on a wild chase through back alleys and crowded walkways. Bobby's lungs burned and the muscles in his legs throbbed. So did his sides and back where the thing had grabbed hold of him and shoved him into a wall the last time they'd cornered it. It would have ripped out his throat if Jack hadn't been there to pull it off him. As it was, he half expected that he'd cracked a rib.

Jack, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying himself. A wide grin played across his lips as he asked the Weevil what it was doing out in the daylight like this, didn't it know sunlight was bad for it's complexion, not to mention his paperwork. "You have no idea how hard it's getting to keep your existence a secret."

The Weevil growled and charged at him. Jack met it half way and slammed the creature into the wall.

"Stun…gun…" Jack grunted at him as the Weevil wrestled Jack into a less desirable position, one that left his neck exposed.

Bobby dug it out of the bag Jack had handed him as they headed out of the Hub and, taking a deep breath, dove in. Several seconds later, the Weevil was out cold on the alley floor.

"See. That wasn't so hard," Jack grinned at him. Blood was flowing down his chest.

"Erm. I think it bit you."

"I'll live," the older man shot him a wink. "How about handing me a sedative, just to be safe."

"Right," Bobby passed over a syringe filled with something Liz had called a four-species sedative.

Jack stuck the Weevil just above the collar bone and emptied the contents of the syringe into it. "That should keep it out long enough for us to get it safely back to the Hub." He secured a black cloth sack over the Weevil's head. "Ok. I did all the hard work. You carry it back to the SUV."

"Gee, thanks."

"Any time," Jack leant back against the wall to catch his breath. "That was fun though, wasn't it?" his expression was frighteningly genuine.

"Oh yeah, barrel of laughs," Bobby hauled the Weevil up over his shoulder; it was heavier than he'd expected. "I'm _so _glad I left New Jersey for this."

"I don't know… Ianto seems to enjoy Weevil hunting with me," he raised his eyebrows, grinning.

"Please tell me there are fringe benefits to this job that _don't _involve shagging the boss."

Laughing, Jack followed him out of the alley. "Come on, Gwen and Ianto are probably back by now and we're holding up lunch."

Bobby just looked at him, "This is really business as usual for you, isn't it?"

"Like I said, welcome to Torchwood. And just what's wrong with shagging your boss anyway?" Jack managed to sound hurt despite the fact that he was still grinning.

……………………………………………..

By the time they got back to the Hub, Gwen and Ianto had returned with nothing major to report. Jack showed Bobby where to deposit their newest resident, introduced him to Janet. Then Ianto showed him the paperwork that accompanied 'Weevil retrieval.'

After lunch, Bobby found himself elbow deep in alien intestines with Liz for the rest of the day, feeling completely intimidated by her knowledge of alien species, despite the fact that she was doing everything she could not to intimidate him.

When he finally he got back to Ianto's flat, all he could do was shower and crawl wearily into bed wondering just what the Hell he was thinking when he thought he could do this job. He was in over his head and he knew it.

……………………………………………………….

**Princeton, NJ (USA):**

Allison checked her email again. Still nothing from Robert.

She closed her eyes and tried to tell herself that it was nothing to worry about, even though she knew that he compulsively checked his email at least six times a day.

She wrote him another short note, with the words **PLEASE READ **in the subject line.

_I understand you're upset with me, Robert. All I'm asking you to do is let me know you landed safely. I'll leave you alone after that, if that's what you want. Just let me know you're ok._

She hit send before she could chicken out. He was probably fine. He'd probably read her first email and decided not to respond because he was angry. Hurt.

"But I couldn't stand in the way of you going when you wanted to go. I just couldn't follow you," she said aloud, as if he could really hear her.


	8. Chapter 7

**Thank you again for the warm response and kind reviews this story has gotten.**

**And as always HUGE thank yous to my beta reader :-) **

………………………………………………………………………**.**

**Chapter Seven: Settling In**

……………………………………………..

**Cardiff, Wales (UK):**

Bobby rolled over, fumbling half asleep for the mobile phone; Ianto had neglected to mention that he'd programmed it with the world's most annoying ring tone. All Bobby wanted it to do was _stop._ "Yeah… hello?"

Instead of a Welsh accent on the other end, it was an American one: "We just got another call from Detective Swanson," said Jack, getting straight down to business. "We'll be there to pick you up in ten minutes."

Neither bothered with 'goodbye'.

Bobby pulled himself out of bed, silently making vow to change the ring-tone at the first free moment he got. His body protested the movement as spasms of pain shot through every bruised, strained muscle. He felt even worse than he had when he had crawled into bed a few short hours ago, and he still wasn't sure of his ability to do his job.

He got dressed anyway, pulling a clean shirt and jeans out of his bag; he was reasonably sure that at three o'clock in the morning, ties were more than just optional, they were completely unnecessary.

After splashing some cold water on his face, he downed a couple of the painkillers Liz had sent him home with, with a glass of juice, and was downstairs waiting at the curb before the SUV pulled up.

Ianto passed over a thermos of hot coffee as he slid into the back seat. Bobby smiled his appreciation as the warm, wonderful liquid filled him. "God, if you weren't taken, I'd ask you to marry me. And I don't even swing that way."

"Never know until you try," was Jack's merry response.

Bobby took another moment to enjoy the coffee before asking what they were headed into.

Ianto was already at the computer, "An hour ago, a man named Steve Fuller came home from the pub to find his girlfriend's charred remains in bed, like she'd been sleeping there waiting for him."

"Hell of a thing to come home to."

"We're picking Gwen up on the way," Jack glanced over his shoulder.

Bobby understood just what he wasn't saying; they were picking Gwen up, but not Liz. He was on his own. He was pretty sure this wasn't the time to tell Jack how scared he was. _He probably already knows._

………………………………………………………

"The sheet's barely singed," Gwen observed when she walked into the bedroom with Bobby.

"Just like the floor from the Miller place," he handed her some menthol salve to make the stench easier to endure.

She nodded her thanks and looked around. The bedroom reminded her of hers and Rhys'. There was a basket of folded laundry waiting to be put away, a few photos, a bowling trophy. There didn't seem to be anything unusual about the people who lived here. She looked at the bed. "What could burn up a body but not touch anything around it? Something that just acts on living tissue maybe?"

He shook his head, leaning in to examine the corpse more closely. "Miller's clothes were burned with the rest of him. And it looks like she might have been wearing a shirt," he used his pen to pick up what could be a badly burned piece of cloth.

"I'm starting to think Jack is wrong about spontaneous human combustion. I looked it up on the internet and found all kinds of articles."

Bobby smiled at her, "All of which were written by quacks," he told her. "There's no such thing."

"Like we have any right to judge. Most people don't believe in aliens, you know."

"That's different."

"How?"

"Spontaneous human combustion is a myth, it's been scientifically disproven."

"Well you explain this, then," she nodded at the remains in the bed.

"That's my job, isn't it?" he didn't mean to snap and wasn't even fully aware that he had until he found Gwen's dark eyes focused in on him. He was suddenly glad that Jack and Ianto were dealing with the police and the neighbours. "Sorry."

"No, it's all right. It's not your fault I'm not a morning person," she flashed a vaguely apologetic smile.

"I'm not even sure if this qualifies as morning or night," Bobby forced a smile of his own as he slid on a pair of latex gloves. He passed another pair over to the dark haired Welsh woman.

"It is that in between time, isn't it? All right then, where do we start?"

He looked over the body, "There has to be something to connect this woman and Harold Miller. You searched the Miller place…"

"And didn't find anything that would explain this."

"There's got to be something. Assuming it's environmental, rather than supernatural," he shot her a look, but tempered it with a smile, "There has to be something common to both victims' lives besides the way they died." He realized his frustration was showing, but Gwen didn't seem to mind; if anything, she seemed to sympathize.

"We'll find it."

He nodded and surveyed the body, trying to decide what to do first. It was nearly impossible to estimate time of death, but as he was puzzling over it, he realized something. "Hey, Gwen, if you heat something up, it takes it a while to cool down, right? And the hotter it is, the longer it takes to cool?"

"You're the doctor," she gave him a good natured smile over her shoulder. "But yeah, why?"

"The boyfriend said he left about ten o'clock. That's barely five hours ago."

"And the heat necessary to do that must be pretty intense…"

"But she's stone cold," Bobby finished for her.

"You're sure there's no such thing as spontaneous human combustion?"

"Even if I thought there were, it wouldn't explain why the body is cold less than five hours after she died. And Miller was cool enough to handle, I just didn't think about it at the time."

"So whatever's doing this causes intense heat _and _rapid cooling?"

He nodded. "The energy dissipates quickly, taking the heat with it." He filed the thought away and began taking pictures before trying to move the body. Like the last one, he expected it to crumble as soon as he touched it.

…………………………………………………..

"Good idea wrapping it in the sheet for transport," Liz told him when she arrived at the Hub, several hours later. The victim, Leslie Anne Warren, had still crumbled, but at least she didn't look like a bad jigsaw puzzle.

"Thanks. I just wish I had some answers."

"Each victim gives us more clues. I know," she added to his skeptical look, "That isn't really a comforting thought, it's just the best thing I've got right now. You want to catch a nap?"

He shook his head. "I'll be fine. Here's what I've got so far," he handed her a clipboard with his test results and leant against the counter, his arms folded over his chest. "It's definitely the same energy signature as Miller. Jack's set up a program to monitor the city for it, so next time we'll at least know before the police. I doubt that'll save any lives, though. Whatever this is, it's there and gone before anyone can blink."

Liz set the clipboard down and leant next to him, "This is difficult for you, isn't it?"

Bobby didn't answer. He didn't look directly at her, either, preferring a spot on the wall just to the left of her head.

"You're used to saving lives," Liz went on anyway. "I looked at your file when Jack told me you were coming. You worked with one of the most celebrated diagnosticians in the United States."

He made a rude noise, "If you'd ever met him, I doubt you'd use the word 'celebrated.'"

"Why did he fire you?"

"I got pissed. I told him what I thought. The one thing House can't stand is someone standing up to him. But you wanna know the funny part? After that we actually almost got to be…friendly."

"Friendly?"

"House doesn't have friends. Well… he has one. God only knows why the guy sticks around through his shit." _God only knows why I miss working for him some days._

"You still admire this Dr. House, don't you?"

"He's brilliant. And arrogant. Reckless. Did I mention arrogant?" He repeated with a smile. She laughed and he continued, "I wouldn't trade in the three years I worked with him for anything, but nothing I saw there prepared me for this," he glanced at the body laid out on the autopsy table. It had survived the trip better than Miller, with more bones in tact, but for someone to have died like that… The only comfort Bobby could give himself is that it must have been so fast she never saw it coming, never felt it happening.

"The success rate of the diagnostics team you were a part of was amazing. It still is."

"Over eighty percent of the patients we treated walked out of there cured. Most of the ones that didn't had something that couldn't be cured, but at least they had an answer, a treatment. Something. I can't think of more than a handful of lives we lost."

"And chances are everybody you're going to see in here is going to already be dead."

He nodded, "Yeah."

"You had to know that coming in."

"I hadn't thought about it," he admitted, facing her at last.

She shifted meeting his gaze directly. "So what were you thinking when you said yes to Jack?"

"I don't know. I was thinking about… Sontarans. The Atmos incident. I was thinking about London, when Jack dove right between me and that Dagon," he shook his head. "Before that moment I hadn't believed in aliens. To be honest, I'd never given it much thought. I mean, come on, crop circles?" he said in an incredulous tone. "Even the things that didn't sound like obvious hoaxes usually turned out to be people seeing things and then attributing them to something more fantastic, like turning weather balloons into UFO's. I thought it was all drunken kids or bored housewives, people who jump at shadows and see things that aren't really there because their own lives are so dull. But there I was, confronted with the impossible, an alien with thirteen eyes and a very big gun. And there was Jack," he smiled at the memory.

"Something of the impossible himself," Liz agreed.

"How did you meet him?"

"That's a long story."

"The patient isn't getting any deader."

"Come on, let's go take a walk. You look like you could use some fresh air. Has Jack shown you the 'lift' up to the Plass, yet?"

His brows furrowed, "The what?"

"Just as I suspected," Liz ushered him up the medical bay steps, telling the others that they were going to get a bit of fresh air and promising to come back with something from the bakery while they were at it. "Best way to get a few minutes to yourself around here," she whispered to Bobby with a conspiratorial wink as she directed him to the lift. "Promise to come back with something. I find that sweets are best," she added.

Bobby found himself smiling despite his mood. Liz guided him over to a section of floor that looked a bit like a concrete block and instructed him step onto it with her. She slid her arm into his as the block began to rise up; Jack called out something about pineapple muffins. Liz assured him that she'd check.

As they rose slowly up through the Hub, Myfanwy swooped by, but payed them little heed. He wondered if he was ever really going to get used to working in this place. _Only Jack would think of something like this,_ he thought as they ascended up into the plaza, just in front of the water tower. It took him a moment to realize that passers by were ignoring them completely. "Why aren't people noticing us?"

"They don't see us. There's a bit of a time-space distortion right on this spot."

"Incredible. But as soon as we step off…"

"As soon as we step off, they'll notice us, but not think anything of it."

He stepped off the block… and sure enough, a young woman glanced in his direction, but didn't seem particularly startled by his sudden appearance out of nowhere.

The sky overhead was still grey with cloud cover, but it seemed to be clearing. There was a hint of summer in the mid-morning air, a freshness and warmth to the breeze. It might have made him happy if he hadn't been up for six hours trying to figure out what had burned a twenty six year old bank teller to an unrecognizable crisp.

"You do look at the world differently after the things you've seen," Liz headed towards the Millennium Centre. "All these people, going about their business, shopping, taking photos… they're all just specks in the galaxy. We're just… just particles of dust."

"That's about how I feel right now," he admitted. "I've got a patient who's already dead and no idea how to save the next one before they wind up on my table, too." Liz was right, every patient he saw now going to be dead, either a victim or a killer. "It's like nothing I do down there is even going to matter."

Her sharp look surprised him, "Because no one will notice?"

"Because I can't save anyone. Not here. Not ever again."

"You specialized in critical care, didn't you?"

"Not exactly the best specialty for this job, huh?"

"Oh, I don't know. It means you must care about people, about saving lives. That's what Torchwood does, you know. You may not be able to save Harold Miller or Leslie Warren, but by finding out how they died, you could save hundreds of other lives." She nodded towards the people coming and going around them, "These people will never know it, never even know your name, but you'll know what you've done. I will. Jack. Gwen. Ianto. We know what we do. _We_ know it matters."

When they got to the door into the Millennium Centre, Bobby opened it for her. Following Liz in, he looked around him, taking in the architecture, the lights, the people coming and going; even early in the day there were a fair number of people out and about.

"Amazing, isn't it?"

"More amazing that they have no idea what's in the basement."

She chuckled, "More amazing than that that is we sometimes forget what's sitting right on top of us."

He sighed and looked around. "Specks of dust."

"And what are stars made of, Bobby, but so much dust swirling together, spinning faster and faster until something sparks inside it, igniting the whole thing. All life starts as a speck of dust. Each speck of dust is the centre of its own universe."

He laughed so suddenly that it startled her. "Sorry. It's just my old boss." Liz had just confirmed House's theory that he was the centre of the universe. "Maybe I do need a nap."

She smiled up at him, "Come on then, we'll just pick up something for the others and then you can go crash on one of the sofas for a few hours."

……………………………………………………

"You never did tell me how you met him," Bobby reminded her as they finished up their selections at the sweet shop and the bakery, which did, indeed have pineapple muffins that morning.

Liz smiled, "Jack and I have a friend in common. While he was looking for him, he found me."

"Another old boyfriend?" he asked; he'd heard a few of Jack's old boyfriend stories.

Her smile turned into a laugh, "I don't think it ever got that far, although not for lack of trying on the Captain's part."

He laughed, too, holding the door for her as they left the centre. "Thanks, Liz. I needed this."

"You're quite welcome."

………………………………………………………….

**Princeton, NJ (USA):**

"Dr. Cameron… " Cuddy seemed startled to see Allison Cameron waiting in her office.

"Hi. I know it's just House getting to me, but I'm really starting to worry about Robert."

"What do you mean?"

"He left three days ago and I haven't heard from him. No one has. I know how it sounds," she added to Cuddy's look. "But he should have contacted someone… unless you've heard from him?" her tone was hopeful.

"No." Cuddy's tone told Allison that she wasn't the only person worrying. "If he doesn't call or contact someone in the next couple of days, I'll make some calls, but that's the best I can do. You… you may just have to face up to the fact that he doesn't want to be found."

"It's not just that he hasn't called or emailed anybody. It's that this Torchwood Institute he supposed went to go work for doesn't seem to exist."

The other woman frowned.

"Go ahead, look it up. There's nothing online but a bunch of stupid conspiracy websites."

"Conspiracy websites?"

"Crop circles, men in black, there's even some group the Queen Victoria founded after some Duke or Lord or something was killed under 'mysterious circumstances'. And some group calling itself LINDA."

"Linda?"

Allison shrugged, "I think… I think something's wrong. I what that sounds like, but I think something is really wrong."

"Let me make a few phone calls. Maybe I can get through to somebody. I'll let you know if I find anything, but I'm sure he's fine."

"Thanks."

……………………………………………………

Three hours later, Lisa Cuddy had been told 'I'm sorry Ma'am, that's classified' so many times her head hurt.

Three days later, Allison broke into Robert's apartment and found the ring. Fresh tears stung at her eyes as she finally understood how badly she'd hurt him. She never would have guessed that he'd go so far as to buy a ring.

_But maybe I should have realized. Maybe I should have remembered all those Tuesdays…_

Tuesday, the random day he'd chosen to come up to her and tell her that he liked her. For a month of Tuesdays he'd asked her to go out with him and for a month of Tuesdays she'd turned him down, after having broken off their sexual affair because he told her he liked her.

He was right, she had feelings for puppies and for people she'd never even met, so of course she had feelings for him. That's what scared her. It scared her even more that she felt so empty and lost and alone without him.

_That I love him and I want him to come home… _

……………………………………………..

**Cardiff, Wales (UK):**

The tree came up fast and hard against Bobby's spine. The six foot tall 'bug' came at him harder and faster. He just managed to duck out of its way before it body slammed the tree right where he'd been standing.

"I don't suppose the cavalry's on its way?" He asked into the com while the insect-like alien shook itself, recovering its senses a lot faster than he had after the collision with the same tree.

"We're not far," Ianto called back.

Not far was probably too far. Right. He ducked another hit and pulled the syringe full of sedative out of his bag, along with the stun gun. It was time to prove to himself that he could do this job…

By the time Ianto and Jack arrived on the scene, Bobby was leaning up next to the large, unconscious insect. He was out of breath, and had a few new bruises, but he was victorious. "This time," he grinned up at Jack, "_You_ carry it back to the SUV."

The Captain laughed, "Just as long as we're clear who does the paperwork."

Ianto shot him a look and offered Bobby his hand. "So what is that thing, anyway?" he asked Jack.

"Looks like a Foamasi, although usually they're a peaceful species."

"Apparently he didn't get the memo," Ianto drawled as Jack hefted the thing up over his shoulders.

Bobby followed them back to the vehicle where Gwen was waiting, having been manning the computer in case they lost sight of the alien and needed to track it.

She looked up as they approached, "I just got another one of those spontaneous human combustion spike energy readings."

"For the last time, there's no such thing," Jack dropped the bug at her feet.

Gwen made a face, "What's that?" she asked in disdain.

"Never mind," said Jack. "Talk to me about that energy reading."

She swiveled the monitor in his direction so he could see it for himself, "The police haven't been notified yet."

He turned to Ianto and Gwen, "You two get our insectoid friend here back to the Hub and we'll go check this out. Sorry, Bobby," he added when he realized that the medic had yet to get a full night's sleep.

The other man just nodded and reached past Gwen for the thermos of Ianto's coffee. "Give me enough caffeine and I'll be fine."

"I knew I liked you," Jack grinned in return. His expression softened when his gaze settled on Ianto's face. "See you when I get back."

Ianto just nodded, his expression a near carbon copy of Jack's. "Careful out there."

"Always."


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight: Expect the Unexpected**

……………………………………………..

**Cardiff, Wales (UK):**

"I'm not sure you should put it on your resume," Jack said in a quiet voice as Bobby found an open window faster than he could have forced a lock open on the ground floor flat. "But you're pretty good at this."

"You can send the thank you letter to my old boss." He hoisted himself up into the window then leant out.

Jack handed him the field kit and then followed Bobby into the dark kitchen.

"Kinda sexy breaking into a stranger's house… don't you think?" Jack asked as they crept though the kitchen.

"I think you should save the bedroom talk for your boyfriend," Bobby replied, almost choking on the stench of charred flesh that hung in the air.

The Captain grinned at him with raised eyebrows, "Always room for one more."

Deciding to quit while he was ahead, Bobby turned his attention to the handheld energy detector. Once he was sure of the reading, he nodded towards a hallway. "Down there."

Jack nodded and pulled out his Welby, shrugging off the other man's questioning look.

They inched their way down the darkened hall and found the charred remains of the flat's owner standing in the bathroom.

"Now that's just wrong," Jack put his gun away.

"Tell me about it," Bobby just shook his head. At least the deceased was standing up…

A loud knock at the front door distracted them from the body.

"Police! Open up!"

"I'll go let them know it's us. You can deal with that guy," Jack jerked his thumb in the direction of the corpse.

"Gee, thanks." He was already reaching for his kit and the menthol rub. Why Jack wasn't gagging he wasn't sure, but maybe when you lived forever, you just learned to let go of the things that bothered mere mortal men. Bobby headed into the bathroom as Jack headed down the hall towards the front door.

"Police!" came a second voice and another round of banging on the door.

"Torchwood!" Jack countered just as loudly in response. He groaned as they continued pounding. He opened the door and identified himself again. "I said _Torchwood_. We've got this one," he informed the pair of uniformed officers. They didn't look as if they believed him. "Harkness, Jack. Authorization 474317. You boys want to call it in?"

"Sorry. Neighbours said someone was breaking in," one of the officers said. He peered around Jack, flashing the beam of his torch around the flat.

Jack grabbed it out of his hand and turned it off. "Did the neighbours say anything else?" he inquired in a sharp tone.

"Why?"

"What do you think? I'm here because I'm looking at property?"

"Jack! I think I've got something," Bobby hollered from the next room.

"That's my cue. Good night, boys," he closed the door in their faces and headed towards the sound of Bobby's voice. He was standing in the bedroom, just across the hall from the open bathroom door and the body. "What is it?"

"Harold Miller's granddaughters showed me some colored glass, or crystals maybe, that they'd collected with their grandfather on the beach somewhere. Miller had a larger one in his kitchen. It looked an awful lot like this," he nodded towards the crystalline formation sitting on the on the edge of the windowsill in the bedroom.

Jack gave him an incredulous a look, as if he was having a hard time making a connection between a series of charred bodies and some rocks.

"Look at the way the victim's head is tilted, Jack. He was looking this way when they died." To lend further credence to his theory, Bobby held the energy detector towards the rock. It was a weak blip, but it registered.

Jack frowned, "All right. We take it with us. Carefully, just in case you're right about it being connected. What about Warren's place?"

"Maybe we missed it. The boyfriend was pretty drunk when he came in. Maybe he knocked it over or something," he shrugged, half expecting to be ridiculed for coming up with stupid ideas.

"I'll call Gwen, have her and Ianto go back over there and check it out. We can go back by Miller's place on our way back in and get that one."

"Jack, if these things are somehow related to how those people died…"

"I'll tell Gwen to be careful," Jack agreed.

Bobby gave him a long measured look.

"Yes, it kills me every time I have to tell any of you to go into a dangerous situation because there is _always_ the chance that one of you won't make it out alive. But this is what we do. Gwen knows that. So does Ianto. So did Tosh and Owen. Now come on, let's get this place cleaned up and that thing secure."

"The only thing that I don't get," Bobby said as he looked at the grapefruit sized stone, "Is how something this small could be responsible for the amount of energy being discharged."

"Hey it's not how big it is that counts," Jack quipped back, handing Bobby a specimen box from the field kit.

"That isn't what you _used_ to say," Bobby grinned back at him, despite his trepidation over what he was about to do. _But this is what we do,_ he reminded himself.

"So if this thing is somehow responsible for killing that guy," he nodded into the bathroom, "Will this actually contain it?" he asked looking at the box he was about to put the crystal into.

Jack shrugged, "That depends on what it is. The box is designed to contain most things."

"Most?"

"Most of what it can't contain isn't found on this planet in this century anyway. Of course I'm betting that isn't from this planet or this century," he added with another shrug.

"You're really not doing a very good job of making me feel better."

Jack flashed half a grin, "_That_ isn't in my job description."

Bobby let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. The energy reading was still weak; he only hoped it was too weak to be dangerous.

When it looked like Jack was going to volunteer to be the one to touch it, he shook his head. He knew what he'd signed on for when he took the job, and Jack wouldn't always be there to take the risks for him. With one last deep breath, he picked the stone up with a pair of tongs from the field kit and set it into the box. Nothing happened. He realized Jack had been holding his breath too.

"One question for you, though," Bobby asked as he put the box into the field kit.

"Hmmm?"

"Do you actually _have_ a job description?"

Jack grinned, a true Cheshire cat grin, "Sure. Captain Jack Harkness, dashing hero and fearless team leader, at your service. _Completely _at your service." he added with a lascivious smirk and a suggestive raise of his eyebrows.

Bobby laughed, "How the Hell does Ianto put up with you?"

"Practice," Jack winked. Then, in more serious tone, "Did you find anything else?"

The younger man shook his head, "Nothing new. No scorch marks on the floor or ceiling, no evidence of a fire or much of anything else except for one badly charred corpse that will probably turn into a pile of rubble and ash the instant I touch it."

"I think I saw a broom in the kitchen," Jack offered.

Bobby just gave him a look, although he couldn't deny that he was probably going to need it. "What exactly are we going to say to the families of these people?" he asked.

"State the obvious without going into detail," he answered.

Jack was at least good enough to get him the broom and lend hand with the clean up.

"Miller's daughter is convinced he was murdered," he reminded the older man.

"So we tell her she was wrong."

"And the reason we're not releasing the bodies… I'm assuming we're_ not_ releasing the bodies…"

"No. We're not releasing the bodies. Quarantine procedure, unknown pathogen," Jack shrugged. It was pretty obvious he was making it up as he went along.

"That's your version of the truth?" Bobby asked in an incredulous tone.

"Sometimes you have to get a little creative in order to avoid a panic."

"I thought you said this was when it all changed, when we finally got out there," he gestured towards the window and the night sky beyond.

"It is. But that doesn't mean that your average every day human resident of this planet is ready for the truth."

"So what exactly do we do?"

"We make sure that when the time comes they are ready."

"By hiding the truth?"

"By releasing it selectively. No one wants to remember their father or mother or sister or lover like this." He motioned to the pile of ash on the floor between them. "Do you have a problem with that?" his asked, his tone becoming sharp.

"No… Maybe... I'm not even saying I disagree it's just that I'm used to patients lying to me, not me lying to patients. Much. At least I'm not used to lying to them for what are probably all the right reasons. I'm not used to lying being the right thing to do." Bobby realized he was babbling and hoped it was just the lack of sleep making him act like this. But the Captain seemed to take it in stride.

"Most of the time it isn't," he agreed. "There are just some things that people aren't ready for. This is one of them. Give yourselves another fifty or hundred years… maybe you'll be ready."

"And if we're not?"

"You're not going to have me around holding your hand forever you know." He flashed the younger man a teasing smile.

Bobby returned it and they finished cleaning up in companionable silence.

"I'd like to go back down to Barry first thing in the morning and confirm that those rocks are really the same," he said as they were finishing up.

Jack gave him a look; technically it was first thing in the morning.

"You know what I mean," he amended.

"We can talk about Barry tomorrow. _After _you've at least six hours sleep."

"You won't get any arguments out of me there."

……………………………………………………………………

Entirely too tired to bother with a shower, Bobby stripped out of his bloodied, soiled, ash covered clothing and crawled into bed. Glancing at the clock, he realized he'd crawled out of it just over twenty six hours ago. "And I left New Jersey for this…" he muttered.

The last year working on a regular surgical team had given regular hours. He missed that, but he still wouldn't trade this job in for anything… Almost anything… _Allison… _

Sleep came rapidly, giving him little time to dwell on how much he missed her or how empty he knew he was going to feel when he finally got a break, because he knew this pace wouldn't keep up forever. Eventually he'd get a proper night's sleep, find the time to look for his own place and realize just how alone he was without her.

……………………………………………

Six hours later, the alarm went off. _At least Jack gives enough of a shit about his team to make sure we get some sleep. _He couldn't remember how many times House had kept the rest of them up pulling all nighters while he went home and slept. Or worse went out drinking with Wilson.

He checked his mobile. There was nothing on the screen, no missed calls, no emergencies that he'd inadvertently slept through, so he took the time for a hot soak in the tub. When he got out he decided that he almost felt human again.

Bobby slipped into a clean soft cotton shirt and found a tie that matched it, wondering what Gwen would say to today's ensemble. She'd taken to questioning his fashion sense and even pulling up the website for the store where he did most of his shopping wasn't enough to convince her he wasn't making it up, it really did match.

The light knock on Ianto's front door pulled him out of his thoughts. Ianto had lent him his car, so he didn't need a lift in to work, and he certainly wasn't expecting anyone else. Besides, he couldn't imagine Gwen knocking that softly. Liz maybe? Bobby pulled on what he discovered to be his last pair of clean jeans and headed towards the door.

He opened it to find a tall dark skinned woman with long curly hair standing there, staring at him with a bewildered expression on her face. "Can I help you?" he asked her.

"You're not Ianto."

"No, obviously not."

Her nostrils flared. "But he still lives here."

"Sort of. Who are you?"

"Who are you?"

"Bobby Chase. I… work with Ianto. He's letting me use his place for a while. I'm from out of town," he added, although he figured his accent made it obvous.

"Where is he, then?" she inquired.

"Look, erm… if you're a friend of his… "

"He's not answering his mobile," she said before he could suggest that she just call him.

Bobby sighed. "I'm not surprised." With the looks Jack had been giving the Welshman last night, he would have been surprised if Ianto was conscious yet. "So… you know my name…?" he prompted, extending his hand as he stepped out into the hall.

"Wendy Shutten," she accepted. "I need to talk to Ianto. And Jack. It's important."

He gave her another look. "All right. Come on in. I'll try calling them." He used Ianto's phone to dial the Hub directly. It would annoy the Hell out of Jack, especially if they had had a late night, but it also might be the only way to get through if Ianto wasn't answering his mobile.

Wendy followed him into the apartment, bringing her duffle bag with her and lingered near him, her arms crossed over her chest.

Ianto answered in four rings. "You weren't answering your mobile earlier," Bobby began, testing her story.

"Sorry. It was in my trouser pocket."

"And your trousers were…?"

"Nowhere near the bedroom."

_Ask a stupid question, _he sighed. "Here, I think somebody wants to talk to you." He handed the phone over.

"Ianto?" she began uncertainly, before grinning. It didn't last long, "I didn't know where else to go. No… no, Ianto, I'm fine. I just needed to talk to you, that's all… Sweetheart, honestly… Besides, I've got that information Liz wanted… I love you too." She handed the phone back to Bobby.

"Hello?"

"Bobby, it's ok. Wendy's a friend of ours. Well… mine actually. Would you bring her in with you?"

"No problem," he hung up and shot an apologetic look Wendy. "Sorry. Just… I…"

"I don't blame you. In your line of work you never know what might show up at your door."

He blinked at the odd tone in her voice, but dismissed it. "I… just need about five more minutes. Erm… can I get you anything?"

"I'm fine, thanks," she sat down on the very edge of the sofa cushion to wait.

When he came back out of the bedroom with his shoulder bag and jacket, he offered to help her with her bag.

"I've got it. Thanks." She shouldered the large duffle bag without effort and followed him silently down to Ianto's car.

Bobby had driven almost four blocks before she spoke again, asking in a quiet tone how long he'd been with Torchwood.

"'Bout a week. Long enough to collect bruises on top of my bruises."

She flashed him a sympathetic smile.

"If you don't mind me asking, what's your connection to Torchwood?"

"Ianto," she answered simply.

Glancing at the woman in the passenger seat, Bobby got the feeling that she wasn't so much secretive as she was shy. It was the way her hair hung half in her face, the way she kept her arms wrapped across her chest… _defensive. _The only time she'd made direct eye contact was when she was asking where Ianto was.

He also realized she had probably been trying to make polite small talk with him by asking how long he'd been with Torchwood.

Bobby cleared his throat, "I met Jack a few years ago," he said, unsure what to really say to keep the conversation going, but he felt compelled to at least try. "In London," he added.

"But you're Australian, right?"

"Technically American, but try not to hold it against me."

She flashed another shy smile, "Well at least you sound Australian."

"I was born and raised there, lived here for a while, well London, anyway. Then I moved to the States. New Jersey."

"Why'd you come back?"

"I got a new job," he smiled as he pulled into the car park. Ianto was waiting for them, his hands resting on his hips, an anxious look clouding his face.

He barely waited until Bobby had the car parked before joining them. He opened Wendy's door and scooped her into his arms as soon as she was free of the seatbelt.

"I'm fine, honestly," she assured him, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck and hanging on tight. The embrace lasted longer, in Bobby's opinion, than the average friendly hug. "Really. I'm fine," she said again.

Ianto held her at arm's length a moment, looking at her very closely. "You're lying," he argued. "You're not fine."

"I'm not fine," she agreed.

"They kicked you out, didn't they?" his tone was pained.

"I made my choice. I knew the consequences." She turned, reaching to take her bag from Bobby who had already pulled it out of the back seat. "I can get that…" she told him.

"I don't mind." He hoisted it to his shoulder.

"Wendy, what's going on?" Ianto pressed, steering her towards the tourist office. "You said you didn't know where else to go…"

"I've spent the last few years… " She case a quick, sidelong glance in Bobby's direction, "I spent the last few years with my own kind. I'm fine, I just don't have much to fall back on right now. It doesn't matter," she added quickly, as Ianto opened the tourist office door for her. "I really came back to see you again before deciding what next." She gave him a warm smile that was clearly doing nothing to assure the Welshman that she was all right. "Don't worry about me, I'll figure something out. Anyway, I was able to get some information Liz might be able to use. Even if the Elders don't want to know the truth _I_ do. I'm not the alone; I just seem to be the only one willing to go looking for answers."

Ianto pressed the button under the desk. The wall slid back and he led the way in. "You're thinking of running away again, aren't you?"

"I didn't run away the first time. You did."

"I didn't hear from you in five years."

"And you wouldn't have wanted to."

He opened his mouth then closed it again. "You're right. But please, promise me you're not going vanish on me again."

"I can't promise anything."

"Wendy…"

They stepped into the small lift, allowing it to take them down to the lower level.

"Yan, I have no idea where I'm going after this, I just know I didn't want to go without seeing you again. Stop spoiling it," she gave him a sweet smile. "Please?"

The cog door slid open and the alarm sounded loudly, announcing their arrival. "All right. Here, I've got that," Ianto took her bag from Bobby and set it at his station as Gwen and Liz came up to greet Wendy with an exchange of warm hellos.

Bobby took a seat at his desk and watched. Despite the warmth displayed by both the ladies, Jack was obviously hanging back, keeping both hands on his coffee cup and watching Wendy closely. It seemed almost as if he was waiting for her to make the first move, which was definitely out of character.

After a moment of what seemed like uncertainty on her part as well, Wendy finally took a step in the Captain's direction, her arms wrapped protectively around herself again. Her expression was as weary as Jack's. "Captain," she said in a cool tone.

He nodded, staying where he was, "Welcome back."

"Thanks for having me."

"Any time." This was the first time Bobby could remember seeing Jack not flirt with someone.

Before he had much time to ponder it, Jack turned to him, his expression and his tone business as usual. "Priscilla Doyle went back to work today and her daughters should be at school. That means the house is empty."

"Right. Breaking and entering it is."

Jack smirked, "Wouldn't want all that fine on the job training you had at your last place to go to waste."

Bobby stood, "I'll be back in a couple of hours," he said. "Assuming I don't get arrested for breaking in."

"You saw me dealing with the police last night," Jack reminded him. "Follow my example. You'll do fine."

"Oi, I heard about that," Gwen cut in, "I had a desk sergeant chewing my ear off first thing this morning about why didn't we call them. _And _they'd like to know what happened to Randolph Mitchell – that would be the body you two brought back last night." She glared at both Jack and Bobby.

"Sorry," the Captain apologized shooting a Bobby a look that clearly suggested the younger man should get out while he still could.

Bobby nodded his appreciation and slipped out the door.

Gwen wasn't done, "Honestly, Jack. Slamming the door in their faces like that?"

He just shrugged, "I'm sure they'll get over it."

She gave him an exaggerated sigh and went back to her station, muttering loudly about how Ianto was the one who usually altered victims' records, not her.

"I have faith in you," Jack assured her, leaning back against the wall to take in the scene around him. It really was business as usual, he thought, draining his coffee cup. Jack couldn't help the small smile as he watched Ianto taking Wendy over to the coffee station.

"I feel as if I've come at a bad time," she said quietly.

"It's been a hectic week, that's all."

Jack joined them, although he shot the younger man a questioning look before coming too close.

He and Wendy had parted on good terms, but she was obviously still unsure about him. Ianto's expression didn't answer any of his questions, but at least he wasn't shaking his head for Jack to go away.

He waited until Wendy looked up to speak to her. "So how did it go with your people?" he asked, as Ianto started to work on a fresh pot of coffee.

"I convinced some of my kin to speak with me about our history, our line. Some of them do believe me… or at least were willing to believe that there might be more to the old stories than we've been taught. Others weren't as convinced."

"Can you ever go back?" Ianto asked her.

"No. I broke our oldest and most scared laws by talking to you." She looked back at Jack again, but only allowed him to hold her gaze for a few seconds. "They're more afraid then ever. The Elders believe you only let me go so you could use me to find the rest of them. So you could kill them… us… just like just like humans have always done." Her tone was filled with uncertainty.

Jack stepped closer, intentionally setting his empty cup on the counter directly behind her so he could measure her reaction. She didn't shy away, but he could see the fear in her eyes when he came close.

"_You _don't believe that, do you?" Ianto asked.

"I'm not sure what I believe any more. But I do trust you." Her gaze flickered from him to Jack and back again. "I just have to figure out where to go from here."

"Who says you have to go anywhere?" the Captain asked her.

She looked at him, clearly surprised by the question and its obvious implication. "You… can't honestly mean… stay…?"

He shrugged. "Why not?"

"But…?"

"The way I figure it, we owe you," he told her. "_I _owe you. Besides, I've still got that job vacancy, if you're interested."

……………………………………………………………

**A/N:**

Wendy is an original character who appeared in my story "A New Day." Theoretically, you don't have to read that one to get this one. More details will be forthcoming (and questions always cheerfully answered ;-)

Because she's a main character and I like visuals, if I actually had the pleasure of casting an actress in the role, I would want Gina Torres as Wendy Shutten.

**Thank you again for the reviews on this one! I know crossovers aren't everyone's favourite, so I really appreciate the warm reception this has gotten.**


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine: The Old Man Tree**

……………………………………………..

**Barry, Wales (UK):**

Bobby hadn't intended to do more than slip in, get what he had come for and then slip right back out of the Doyle home as quickly as possible.

When he noticed the stack of Pippa's drawings sitting on her desk, however, he couldn't help but leaf through them. The one of a stick figure that looked suspiciously like him made him smile. _Kids,_ he thought. He'd wanted kids once. That was before Torchwood.

He had gleaned from conversation that Gwen and Rhys were discussing the pros and cons of children; but Gwen was right, there was a good reason that Torchwood didn't have a maternity plan. Chances are they would all die before any children they might ever have graduated from high school.

He sighed and shook himself, trying to clear his head of thoughts like that. In a way children, if not his own, were exactly why he was doing what he was doing. Allison's kids, if she ever had any, these two little girls. Future generations.

Bobby glanced back at the picture of him and smiled again.

The next picture in the stack was of a tree that looked as if it be called an 'old man tree'; there was even a big rock in the background. He used his mobile to take a picture of the drawing.

He stacked the drawings back the way he'd found them and pulled out the hand-held detector, hoping it would help him find the cigar box and those crystals.

"Try under the bed."

He jumped and whirled around, several curses poised on the end of his tongue. Then he recognized the girl standing in the doorway.

"Rhianna! Jesus! What are you doing here?" he slipped the detector into his pocket quickly, although he was fairly certain she'd seen it.

"I could ask you the same thing, you know, Dr. Chase." A wry smile played at her deep-red lips as she closed the distance between them.

He frowned, "How do you know what I was looking for?"

"I took a guess. Besides, whenever the girls want to hide something, they usually put it under the bed and whatever you're looking for is probably important, right?"

He blinked at her. It made sense. "You still haven't explained what you're doing here."

"I saw you pull up and I was coming over to let you in." She held up a house key. "But apparently you didn't need the assistance. I didn't think the police could just break into someone's home like this."

"I never said I was with the police, did I?" Without waiting for an answer, he knelt down and peered under the bed. Sure enough, there was the cigar box.

"What do you want with that?" Rhianna asked as he pulled it out.

"Look, you should stand back. Just in case." He lifted both the cigar box and his field kit onto the bed.

"In case of what?"

"In case of anything." Reluctantly, he pulled the detector out of his pocket. It blipped right on cue.

Rhianna peered over his shoulder. "What is that?"

"Nothing you need to worry about."

"Who are you?"

Bobby sighed. There was really only one answer. "Torchwood."

"I knew it!" Her grin surprised him as much as her sudden appearance.

"You… What?"

"You people think you're so clever, but honestly, who else can go anywhere they want to asking questions and breaking into people's houses? So what happened? How did Mr. Miller die? Is it true what they say about aliens in Cardiff?"

"Whoa, slow down Nancy Drew," he held up his hand to silence her. He lifted the lid of the cigar box. Inside it were the three coloured stones, and an assortment of other trinkets and treasures, just like before.

"Come on, I came over here to help, you have to give me something!"

"How about a piece of advice…?"

She groaned, "I can get _advice _from my mother."

"Then how about just standing back a little," he told her, physically moving her back behind him. He pocketed the detector and pulled a small lead lined box out of the field kit. Using a large pair of tweezers to grasp the crystals, he plucked them from the cigar box and put them inside the specimen box.

"What are those?" Rhianna asked him.

"The honest answer is that I don't know, at least not yet." He sealed the box and set it back into his case, feeling only marginally better.

"So, is it true what they say about that American who's supposed to be in charge of you guys or something?"

He shot her a look, as he slid the cigar box back under the bed, wondering briefly what the girls were going to make of some of their treasure gone missing. "That depends on what you've heard about him," he told her.

"They say…" she blushed. "They say he'll shag anything… " she shot him a meaningful look.

Bobby chortled, "Erm… Right… Jack has a boyfriend. And it's not me."

"So does that mean _you're_ available?" Her voice took on a sultry tone.

_God, I wonder if Jack realizes we have groupies,_ he thought to himself."Not really, no," he lied. "Do you think you could do me a favour and not mention you saw me here today?"

"If you let me take you out to lunch some time."

"Rhianna, I've got to be at least ten years older than you."

"So?"

He sighed, "Fine. But not today."

"Do I get your phone number?"

"No, I'll call you."

"If you don't…"

"I will," he promised her. After all, it was just lunch, what could it hurt? "Just… don't expect it to be right away, ok?"

"Ok. But I'll hold you to that." She walked with him out the front door of the house.

Bobby watched her head back down the road to her own house.

He put the field kit in the trunk of Ianto's car. He doubted that the distance between him and the stones was enough to make transporting them safe, but he couldn't leave them behind, either. Hopefully Jack was right about that lead lined box.

He pulled out his phone and dialled Gwen's number.

"Hello? Bobby?"

"Yeah, it's me. You can access satellite images from there, right?"

"Sure. Why?"

"I'm going to send you a picture. It's pretty crude. I need you to see if there's any place around here that looks like it."

"What are you up to?"

"I'm not sure yet, but since I'm here, I might as well check it out if I can. Hang on," he pulled the image up on his mobile and sent it to hers. "Got it?"

"It's a kid's drawing."

"Miller's granddaughter drew it. It's where they found the crystals."

There was a brief pause on the other end. "All right. This could take a few minutes… "

"Can you talk and work at the same time?" he leant up against the car.

"I'm a woman of many talents, thank you." The smile in her voice was audible.

Bobby chuckled wryly. He glanced up the street, but it seemed as if Rhianna had really gone back home. "So what's the story with Ianto's friend, Wendy?"

"That's… kind of a complicated."

"Is there anything around here that _isn't_ complicated?"

"Not really, no. She helped Ianto out of a tough spot when he was a kid. You should probably read her file when you get back. Jack said she could stay on with us. Hang on… here we go… smile, you're on satellite camera."

Bobby grinned and looked up, waving, wondering just which satellite system she'd hacked into. In the background, he heard Jack asking what was going on and Gwen explaining.

A moment later Jack's voice came over the phone. "Bobby? What do you have out there?"

"Miller's granddaughters said they found those stones by some old tree. They drew a picture of it… "

"We can be there in half an hour."

"I don't need you to hold my hand, Jack."

"And I don't need you getting fried. Wait for the rest of us. That's an order."

Bobby sighed. "Fine. But I can't wait here. I think one of Doyle's neighbours has a crush on me."

In the background he heard Gwen giggling. Then her voice came over the line, "There's a café not to far from where you are. Hang on, I'm sending you directions. We'll meet you there in about forty minutes. Well, maybe twenty, since Jack's the one driving."

"Hey!" the Captain exclaimed in the background.

………………………………….…….……..

"Just coffee, please," Bobby said to the waitress as he settled into a booth to wait. It seemed almost a little weird having nothing to do.

He pulled out his mobile phone and accessed his email… _Shit…_ Allison; Allison; Allison; Cuddy; Foreman; Allison; Cuddy; Allison; Wilson…

_Bloody Hell…_ he swore silently.

He glanced at his watch trying to calculate the time difference, but with Al's rotation, it probably wouldn't matter what time it was in New Jersey. He decided to call her work first; he'd called her there often enough to remember the number for direct line into the ER.

"Is Dr. Cameron in?" he asked when the nurse picked up.

"Dr. Chase?"

Right. Of course his accent would give him away. "Yeah, it's me. Is she in on today?"

"Hang on a minute."

Most of the ER staff knew they'd been dating, so it was probable that everybody knew they'd broken up as well. He wondered what she'd told them.

_Not that it matters,_ he told himself. He wasn't even sure why he was calling. She had been the one to dump him, by all rights he shouldn't be bothering, but her emails had gone from politely concerned to nearly frantic. _And I suppose I was a bit of an ass taking off like that._

The hold music cut out. "Robert?"

"Hi." It felt strange to have someone calling him Robert again; it had only been a week, but he'd gotten used to being Bobby.

"Are you all right?" Her voice sounded strained.

"I'm fine," he lied. He wasn't fine. He had been a minute ago, but he wasn't now. Now he had this big, cold, hollow space inside him, the place where he used to have her… _only she__** doesn't**__ love me,_ he reminded himself. He cleared his throat before trying to speak again. "How, erm… how's everything there?" He smiled his thanks up at the waitress when she brought his coffee.

"All right, I guess. How's it there?"

"Fine."

"Must be busy. You haven't answered your email."

"Yeah, sorry," he struggled to keep his tone light. "I got here just as something came up."

"Oh?"

He dumped some sugar into his coffee and gave it a stir. "Yeah."

"Anything interesting?" she asked.

"Sort of. This is honestly the first chance I've had to catch up on anything and I've really only got a few minutes."

"Sounds like the old days." It sounded like she was forcing a smile.

"A little bit," he conceded. "Although the job perks are better."

"Oh yeah?"

He chuckled despite himself; he wasn't going to tell her about Jack's idea of fringe benefits. "My boss actually ordered me to get six hours sleep last night."

"He must be a saint."

"Not hardly. But he's a good man to work for," he told her honestly.

"I'm glad."

"Yeah." He realized he didn't have anything else he could say but he wasn't ready to hang up. As much as it hurt, it was good to hear her voice.

"So… where are you?" Allison asked before he could come up with something else to say to try and keep the conversation going for just a few more minutes.

"Right now?" he asked.

"Sure."

Bobby looked around, trying to figure out the best way to answer her. "Hang on." He used his phone to take a picture of the parking lot outside the diner window, sending it to her. "I just sent you a picture. It's the view from this little diner I'm sitting at in Barry. That's about half an hour south of Cardiff."

"Are you by yourself?"

"I'm waiting for some friends to show up."

"Making friends already?"

"From work. I haven't done much except work and sleep, but the people I'm working with are really great."

"Not like here, huh?" she laughed, but just barely.

"I don't know, I can think of some people there were pretty great to have worked with."

"Robert…"

"Allison, don't."

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right. You made the right decision not to follow me here." _Daleks… Cybermen… Dagoni_… she was better off not knowing about any of it.

There was an extended silence on the other end before Allison asked him about the case he was working.

"I …" he hesitated. "Burn victim."

"I guess that's right up your alley."

"Dead burn victim." He corrected, although he knew hadn't meant to say that, the words just slipped out. He drank some coffee and realized he'd dumped entirely too much sugar into it.

"Oh. I'm sorry…"

"Just part of the job." He realized he'd better get off the phone before he said anything else he didn't mean to.

"How can that be part of the job?" She sounded surprised at the easy way he'd said that.

Bobby shrugged, but of course she couldn't see it. "It… it just is."

"Where are you?" she asked again.

"I told you. I'm in this little diner…"

"That isn't what I meant, Robert. What's going on? Why can't I find this Torchwood anywhere on the Internet?"

A familiar black SUV pulled into the lot, "I have to go. I'll call you again when I get the chance."

"Robert…"

"Tell everybody I said hi. I… I'll try to get around to my email when things settle down here. It was good to hear your voice," he added quickly, before losing his nerve. He hung up before she could respond and threw a couple of bills down to cover his coffee and the tip.


	11. Chapter 10

Once again, many thank yous to everyone who has reviewd and/or added this their alerts/fave lists!!

**Chapter Eleven: Puzzle Pieces**

* * *

**Barry, Wales (UK):**

Bobby slid into the backseat of the SUV next to Ianto. The young Welshman was so engrossed in what he was reading on the computer screen in front of him that he barely looked up. Instead it was Gwen who noticed that Bobby seemed distracted.

"You all right?" she asked, turning around.

"Yeah. Fine." He didn't really care if she believed him, but catching Jack looking at him in the rear view mirror, he added, "I'm all right," for the Captain's benefit.

Jack nodded, accepting the answer and pulled back onto the road.

"I've been going through the archives," Ianto said then. "There wasn't anything in the Torchwood database, but I did find an old newspaper report about a meteorite that may have hit ground somewhere around here in May of 1915."

"Are you saying Torchwood _didn't_ investigate?" Bobby blinked in surprise.

"We were stretched thin during the War," Jack told him. "Most of us joined up with the military…" he paused, trying to pull up the memories of names and faces from all those years ago. "Amelia stayed on. Peter stayed with her. He didn't think a girl should be left all alone during wartime… not that she needed his protection," he grinned at the memory.

She'd been the first person in Torchwood he'd actually liked and she had definitely been somebody who could handle herself against anything the War threw at her.

The sound of Gwen's voice brought him back to the present. "How long have you really been with Torchwood, then?" she asked.

"Longer than I ever wanted to be," he admitted without thinking.

"Just up ahead, left turn," Ianto said from the backseat.

"What do you mean, longer than you ever wanted to be?" Gwen pressed.

Before Jack could say anything, Ianto cut in, answering for him. "Torchwood was set up to protect the Crown from alien threats, Gwen. It wasn't the… friendliest of places in the early days."

"So why did you join in the first place?" she wanted to know. It wasn't often any of them got Jack talking about his past.

"My choices were limited," he told her the truth. As he rounded a bend in the road, the coastline came into view up ahead.

"But you stayed. There must've come a time when you had other choices."

"I… was waiting for somebody," he glanced over at her, and then at Ianto in the rearview mirror. Ianto's expression was impossible to read. "Torchwood was founded to protect the Crown from a specific alien threat. The Doctor."

"_Your_ doctor?" Gwen asked.

He nodded.

"What did he do?"

Jack couldn't help but grin, "He annoyed the Queen."

Gwen blinked as if not believing him. "Is that all?"

The grin broadened, "He can be pretty annoying when he puts his mind to it."

"So this Doctor's a Time Agent, then?" her tone was scathing.

Jack shot her a look, "What is it you guys have against Time Agents?"

"Well given the ones we've met…" Gwen let it hang in the air.

Jack sighed. "I think I should be offended."

"You should," Ianto assured him in a dry tone.

Jack looked at him again, but his expression remained unreadable. "The Doctor isn't a Time Agent. In fact… how did he put it…? I don't remember exactly… but it went something like how comparing a vortex manipulator to his TARDIS was like putting a banger next to a sports car.

"He's the one with the sports car," Jack added with raised eyebrows and a grin blossoming on his face once more. He turned onto the road Ianto indicated to him with a light tap on the shoulder.

"So you're saying we got dumped last year for a man in a sports car, is that it?" Gwen's tone was scathing, although it was tempered by a slight bit of a grin; she glanced back at Ianto, too, her eyes betraying her concern for his feelings.

The Welshman just shrugged.

"I came back, didn't I?" Jack's said defensively. He glanced at Ianto, again; if he was bothered by the conversation, he was doing a good job of keeping it to himself.

"Did you find anything more about that meteorite?" Jack asked, steering the conversation back to the original topic and wondering if he and his Welshman were going to have one of those long uncomfortable conversations about this later.

The younger man looked up from the computer screen. "No. But with the War going on, I'm not surprised. It wasn't just Torchwood who were stretched thin. Everything went for the war."

"Look," Bobby pointed towards a gnarled old tree that looked just like the one in the drawing. "This must be the place. And look there," he pointed further up the way. A single large rock jutted out of the water, just like the one in the girls' drawings.

Ianto tapped a few keys on the computer, "I'm not getting any kind of energy reading, but it may be too faint to detect. We only seem to be able to pick it up when it's deadly."

"Great," Bobby muttered.

Jack pulled the SUV to the side of the road, giving Ianto one last look in the rearview mirror. Ianto met his gaze, but his eyes betrayed nothing. _Right_, Jack thought. If he could count on Ianto for anything, it was that he would always keep his promise about not letting whatever happened between them affect his job performance.

He got out of the SUV, "Bobby, you're with me. Gwen, Ianto," he nodded to them to head the opposite way up the beach. "Do we have any idea what we're looking for?" he asked the Australian.

"Miller's granddaughters said they found coloured stones here somewhere… between that tree and…" he looked around. Off in the distance he spotted a large rock jutting out of the water. "Probably that rock."

"What about the other victims?" asked Gwen.

"For the time being, let's assume the same thing," Jack told her. "Remember, we have no idea what actually sets these things off, so be careful," he looked at each of them but was aware that his glance lingered on Ianto the longest; he found himself thinking of Amelia again. She'd been just about Ianto's age when she died.

"You realize I'm just playing hunch," Bobby told him quietly after they'd walked several paces from the others.

"Sometimes hunches are all we have to go on," Jack told him. He was using his wrist strap to scan for the energy signature; Bobby was using one of the hand held detectors to do the same. So far neither one of them was getting anything.

_It's like looking for a needle in a damned haystack,_ the Captain swore silently.

"So what was all that about Time Agents?"

"I used to be one. Or will be one," he flashed a wry grin, "It kinda depends on how you want to look at it."

"What_ is_ a Time Agent?"

"Nothing that matters to the here and now," he continued to sweep the area, but still got nothing.

He cast his glance up and down the beach. There were a few knots of people enjoying the day. He found himself envying them, just a little. They had no idea of the dangers around them, maybe right under their feet…

The thought filled him with urgency, however. They had to find out what was had killed those three people before he ended up with more corpses in the vaults.

"What happened to no secrets?" Bobby was standing there, staring at him.

Jack felt his jaw tighten. "It was just a job. I did for a while, then I quit. Sometime after that, the Agency fell apart. I don't know why and I don't care," he said before Bobby could ask. "It doesn't matter any more." He turned in a circle, scanning 360 degrees, but _still _nothing.

"It's just that you talk about time travel as if it's nothing."

"Humans start experimenting – successfully – with time travel in about another two thousand years. By the fifty first century, it's been perfected. No big deal." He realized he was sounding defensive; the truth was it was a big deal, he just didn't need to be having this conversation right now.

"Sorry. I just never…"

"I know. It's a lot to take in. Sometimes I forget that the things I take for granted are pretty incredible to you people." He got a small ping on his wrist strip, "_Yes!_ Come on,"

Jack led the way jogging up the beach towards a large outcropping of rocks. The signal was faint, but it was definitely there.

……………………………………………

**Princeton, NJ (US):**

Allison barely looked up as House sat down – uninvited as usual – at her table.

"Somebody hasn't been getting her beauty sleep. Or has the raccoon look become sexy?" he inquired.

She didn't answer.

He helped himself to her Danish. "Hot date keeping you up all night?" he asked, stuffing half of it into his mouth.

"You know, if you're going to keep making a habit of this, I'm going to start getting two breakfasts," she grumbled half heartedly.

He smirked, "People might start talking about us if you did that."

"Are you here for a reason, or is it just to annoy me?" It was awfully early for House to be in to work.

"Isn't annoying you reason enough?" he shoved the other half of her Danish into his mouth.

"House…"

"Hey, at least I'm not the one sitting around here pining for some guy I let go. Not that I would actually be letting go of a guy, but… well you get the idea." He flashed a condescending smirk.

"So what? You think I should go chasing off to Cardiff after him?"

"That would be one option. Or we can do this again tomorrow morning. Only next time, don't get the cheese Danish. Try the apple. I like those better." He ambled off out of the cafeteria.

……………………………………………………………**.**

**Barry, Wales (UK):**

Jack tapped his com link. "Gwen…Ianto… I think we've found it," he said. "Get down here now."

"Right," Ianto answered first. "We're on our way."

Jack watched him in the distance looking his way, a dark figure against the pale sand and light blue sky. Gwen was standing next to him.

He turned towards Bobby, who had been the one to find the entrance into a small cave in the outcropping. "Wait here. I'm going to have a look inside."

"Jack…"

"Come on," the Captain smirked, "it's not like anything in there can kill me..." he paused a moment and slid out of his coat. "On second thought," he handed it to Bobby. "Just in case. Wouldn't want to lose that," he winked and disappeared into the darkness.


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter Twelve: Fire and Stone**

……………………………………………..

**Barry, Wales (UK):**

They saw the flash of intense blue light first, then a half a second later they heard the scream and then Jack's ragged voice over the com saying _not_ to follow him in.

"Jack? Jack!" Ianto screamed into the com. He and Gwen were still half way up the beach, but as soon as he'd seen Jack take off his coat and hand it over to Bobby, he started running. There weren't many reasons why Jack would take off his coat like that and if he thought something was going to go wrong…

"_Jack!" _Ianto screamed again, panic overtaking his senses.

Bobby caught him before he could get into the cave, pulling the frenetic man away from the entrance. "You heard him!" he shouted at Ianto. He'd been trying to raise the Captain on the com as well, but hadn't gotten anything but static.

By then Gwen had caught up. "What happened?" she demanded, choking, covering up her nose and mouth with both hands. The charred-flesh stench coming from the cave entrance was unbearable.

"Jack went in," Bobby told her. He let go of the other man when he realized Ianto had stopped struggling to break free.

The younger man hit the rock with the palm of his hand in frustration, calling Jack's name again, but still not getting an answer. He turned and leant up against the rock, both palms against his forehead, trying to collect himself.

_Just breathe,_ Ianto told himself. _Just remember all those other times he got up from things that should have killed him…_

He'd promised Jack a long time ago he would never let their personal relationship affect their work relationship. _But that was before he told me he loved me… _Before Jack had gotten a proper clothes hamper, just for him; before had Jack asked him to move in.

"Ianto?" Gwen ventured carefully, her voice cutting through his jumbled thoughts. "Ianto…?"

"Yeah... Yeah, I'm fine," he lied. He knew he wasn't fooling anyone, but he didn't care.

She laid a hand on his arm, "He'll be ok," she tried to sound reasonable. "You know he will. He's Jack," she added as if that fact made it all right. In away, it did.

Ianto took a deep breath and let it out slowly, running his hands over his short hair. She was right. This was Jack. "He'll be out here any minute laughing at me for getting upset." He tried to force a smile.

"He won't laugh at you."

"How long do we wait?" asked Bobby.

"As long as it takes," Ianto snapped at him. He took Jack's coat from the medic, mumbling an apology for his tone. "Why the Hell didn't he wait for us? He'd kill any one of us if we pulled a stunt like that." He was talking more to himself than to the others.

Ianto leant up against the rock again, clinging to Jack's coat. He looked at his watch. By his estimation, several minutes had already passed and there was still no sign of movement. He should be out already, but the cave remained dark and silent while the sickening odour of burnt flesh hung in the air.

Thirteen and a half minutes passed before they heard movement from inside the cave. This time no one had to stop him, Ianto stopped himself when he saw the shape Jack was in as he crawled out and collapsed at his feet.

Most of his clothes had been scorched off and what was left was singed black. Although it looked as if the worst of it had healed, his body was bloodied and burnt and he wasn't moving.

Ianto collapsed next to him, not daring to touch the tender, barely healed flesh.

"Should I get…?" the medic asked, but Gwen's head shake stopped him. Her grim expression didn't make him feel better about just standing around. He was a doctor, he should be _doing_ something.

"I've got a bottle of water in the SUV," Ianto told them in a strangled tone.

Without a word, Gwen turned and headed back up to where Jack had parked, leaving Ianto and Bobby to watch as the last of the Captain's wounds healed. She would never admit it, but she was as heartbroken as Ianto to see the beating Jack insisted on putting his body through sometimes.

Bobby knelt down next to the Welshman, but he didn't make any attempt to come between them or even offer any of the usual words of comfort.

Even though he believed Jack would be all right, seeing him like this made his stomach churn. He'd been hit by the same energy that had turned three other people into heaps of ash; how could even Jack survive that?

As soon as it looked like it was safe to touch him, Ianto pulled his Captain's head into his lap, gently stroking his hair, silently willing him to wake up. He was breathing, he was alive, he was just out cold, probably some sort of trauma, the body's natural reaction to that much pain.

Ianto had a very hard time keeping the image of those other bodies out of his mind as he waited for Jack to wake up and laugh at him.

Jack opened his eyes just as Gwen returned, but it wasn't her he was looking at.

Seeing those blue eyes flicker open made Ianto's heart almost stop; realizing that his face was first thing Jack sought out as soon as he woke up made him shudder involuntarily.

"Hey there," Jack croaked.

"You scared the shit out of me, I hope you realize that," Ianto managed a weak smile.

He cracked a grin right back, although his expression made it obvious he was still in a lot of pain. He reached up and wiped the moisture from the younger man's cheeks. "Those had better not be for me," he teased, his voice still a hoarse whisper.

"Must be the sand," Ianto fibbed, not making any special effort to sound convincing.

The older man chuckled, and eased himself slowly into a sitting position with Ianto's help. "Damn," he muttered, looking down at himself. "Glad I took that off," he glanced at his coat.

"Here," Gwen handed him the water.

"Thanks."

"Now, don't you ever do that again!" she snapped.

"Why?" he replied with a cheeky grin. The smile faded when he glanced back at Ianto. "I'm all right," he insisted gently in the younger man's direction.

"Yes, Sir," he murmured. Then he shook himself. "Of course you are. But I'm with Gwen. If you do that to us again, you really _might_ find a Weevil in your wardrobe."

Jack grinned. "I'll keep that in mind," he handed the empty bottle back to Gwen and with Ianto's help got to his feet. The younger man helped him with his coat.

"What happened?" Gwen asked, averting her eyes as Jack stood up.

"I found more of those rocks," he told her simply.

"Erm… Jack…" Gwen motioned vaguely in his direction.

"You might want to button up," Ianto clarified.

"I thought you liked this view," Jack teased him with a wicked grin.

"I may. However there are children on the beach."

"What do you mean 'may'?" he feigned hurt, even as he was checking his wrist strap for damage.

Fortunately, it had been designed to withstand a lot. His com on the other hand… Before he could ask, Ianto had handed his over. "Thanks." He used it to get in touch of Liz back at the Hub. He asked her to get with the local authorities and cordon off the entire beach. Then he wanted her and Wendy to join them there for a major removal operation.

"No, I do _not_ need you to call UNIT," he snarled into the com when she suggested it. "We can handle this ourselves."

He let his gaze slide towards his young Welshman. Ianto seemed to have fully recovered from the scare he'd given him.

_Mine?_ He suddenly realized the words that had run through his own head. When exactly had he started thinking of Ianto as his and his alone? He shook himself. He could think about_ that_ later.

"Oh and Liz," Jack added, before letting her go. "I'll need you to bring me a change of clothes. Thanks." He closed the channel.

"Now are you going to tell the rest of us what's going on?" Gwen pressed him.

"We've gotta get those things out of there. I want you to coordinate with the Cardiff police," he continued. "If anyone else found some of those things and took them home…"

Gwen nodded, seeing his point. She pulled out her phone and stepped away from them so she could make a few calls.

"I don't get it, though," said Bobby. "If they've been here since 1915…"

Jack shrugged, "Maybe something changed, maybe the cave wasn't accessible until recently. I don't know. Right now our only priority is containing the situation."

"How exactly are we going to do that?" the medic asked him. "We can't just go in there and pick them up."

"Someone must have," said Ianto. "How else would Miller and those other people have gotten hold of them?"

The Captain nodded. "My thoughts exactly. Given what we've seen so far, it seems like they need time to recharge. Hopefully I bought us enough time to get them out of here and back to the Hub."

"And if you didn't?" Ianto wanted to know.

"I'll be the only one going in," Jack told him. "And I'd better not find Janet hiding in my wardrobe," he added in a warning tone. "This is work. You can get mad at me the next time I go and do something suicidal just for fun."

The younger man gave him a dubious look, but refrained from comment. With Jack it seemed like those lines got blurred an awful lot.

"How many crystals were there?" Bobby asked.

"A dozen… maybe two dozen. I wasn't in there for more than a few seconds before they hit me. It was weird…" he began thoughtfully.

"Murderous rocks. What could _possibly_ have been weird about that?" Ianto intoned, deadpan.

Jack shot him a look. "I mean… I don't know," he shook his head. "It almost felt like… Murderous isn't the right word, but it's close." He shook it off. They could figure it out later.

"What exactly are we going to do with these things when we get them back to the Hub?" Bobby asked.

Jack's grin was not reassuring, "Science is your department. But I, for one, am going to take a very long shower and," he raised his eyebrows suggestively in Ianto's direction, "finish up some paperwork in my office."

The younger man blushed while Gwen gave just them a look. She was just finishing up a call with Andy. Her former partner had agreed to help them discreetly get the word out about some potentially irradiated material that had washed up on the beach in Barry recently. It was doubtful Andy believed the radiation story, but he wasn't pressing the issue. "Do you really think this is that meteorite, then?" she asked Jack as she flipped her phone shut.

"I don't know. Like I said, science is somebody else's department," he winked at the blond.

"What was that line?" Bobby grinned right back at him. "Damn it, Jack, I'm a doctor not a geologist," he gave over his best imitation of Dr. McCoy from Star Trek, which, considering his accent, wasn't very good.

Laughing, Jack laid an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. "No, you're Torchwood. One day you're tracking giant bugs, the next day you're a geologist…" The sound of sirens wailing made him stop a moment. He groaned when the first police car skittered to a halt near the SUV. "Oh great. "The locals."

"Let me," Gwen told him. "Wouldn't want them getting the wrong impression of us," she gave Jack an appraising look. His boots had survived mostly in tact but that was about it besides the wrist strap. She headed back up the road to go talk to the Barry police.

"I don't know _what_ she's talking about…" Jack looked from Bobby to Ianto and back again.

Ianto rolled his eyes. Hopefully Liz would be here with a change of clothes for Jack soon…_And hopefully one will be enough. _

"I need your phone," Jack said, holding out his hand.

Ianto handed it over with a confused look. "Do I even want to know?"

"Well, who do you know who has access to a big telescope?" he asked, although he didn't wait for the answer. "Maybe Victoria knows someone who was paying more attention back in 1915."

With any luck, they could track down where this thing had come from because that would go a long ways toward telling them what it was.

……………………………………………………

**Cardiff, Wales (UK):**

Several hours later, and without further incident, they had relocated several dozen crystalline specimens to the Hub where Bobby and Liz could examine them, under strict security precautions.

Most of the pieces were grapefruit sized or smaller, but there were a few larger pieces that Jack had ordered sealed up; the bigger they were the greater the discharge.

The beach where they'd been found was quarantined under the pretence of radioactive material washing up. And as much as he hated involving UNIT, Jack wanted to get the entire rock formation out of there, so tomorrow a group from the United Intelligence Task Force was coming up to have a look at the situation and see if they could lend a hand. It was as yet undecided who would take custody of the rock.

"You really don't like to share, do you?" Ianto asked as the Captain hung up the phone with UNIT.

Jack had showered, just like he'd said he would, and changed into his third outfit of the day. He still hadn't beaten his record. Ianto could recall a particularly bad day in which Jack had lost three shirts and had to change clothes a total of five times.

The Welshman was surprised when Jack pulled him suddenly into his lap, a move that was completely uncharacteristic of the older man, especially since they were still technically on the clock.

Just the same, it only took him a second to realize how incredibly comfortable the position was. He wrapped his arms around Jack's neck and let himself be held.

"It might surprise you to find out just how selfish I can really be," Jack said into his lover's ear, his voice pitched somewhere between a whisper and a growl. His tone caused an immediate physical response in the younger man.

Jack found Ianto's mouth on his, his tongue playing at his lips. He responded, pulling him closer, both arms wrapped possessively around the younger man's body.

For a change it was Wendy who interrupted them, instead of Gwen.

Ianto hastily got to his feet, pulling his jacket back into place while Jack, in typical Jack fashion, just smirked. "Did you need something?" he inquired, as Ianto shoved his hands into his pockets in a failed attempt at looking innocent.

"Yeah…erm….I just… sorry… I… I was wondering if I could head out…or something," she floundered. "I… I'm not feeling very well…"

"What's the matter?" Ianto asked her, concern flickering across his face. Jack's brows were furrowed, as well.

"It's nothing. Just a migraine. It started on the beach, but it's been getting worse. I just need to get out of here for a while…"

"Go see Bobby," Jack told her.

"He and Liz have their hands full, I just need to find a place to crash."

"Why don't you use my flat?" the Welshman suggested.

"You've already got a houseguest," she reminded him.

"All the more reason to go talk to Bobby," insisted Jack. To make sure she did, he got up, took her by the arm, and walked her over to the medical bay, hollering down for the medic.

"Yeah? What is it?" Bobby asked, coming up the steps. "Wendy? Are you all right?" he pulled of the heavy gloves he'd been wearing, an added precaution, despite the fact that they had the crystals in a full containment unit. He tilted her head up to the light to look at her pupils.

"It's just a migraine," she protested.

"Think she can use Ianto's sofa for a while?" asked Jack.

"Take the bed," he told her instead. "I'll crash on one of the couches here."

She gave him a look.

"Go on. I don't think I'll be getting back there any time soon, anyway. Besides, this place has all the comforts of home," he told her. "I'll come by later and grab my stuff," he added.

"Are you sure you don't mind?"

"I honestly don't expect to get out of here any time soon anyway. Can I get you something for the pain?" he asked.

Her pupils looked ok, but when he felt her forehead, her skin was cool, clammy.

Wendy shook her head, "My metabolism isn't the same as yours. Most pain killers don't work. It should pass… I never get these," she added, turning to Jack. "My kind…" She faltered a little, the pain of the last few weeks, being disowned by her kith and kin, showed in her expression. "We don't usually get sick, not like this."

Jack continued to frown, "I'll give you a lift. And I want you to call me in a couple of hours, to check in. Consider that an order," he added when it looked like she was going to argue.


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter Thirteen: Wendy**

……………………………………………..

**Cardiff, Wales (UK):**

Bobby stepped quietly back into Ianto's living room and dialled Jack's number. "She's out cold on the bed," he told the Captain in a soft tone, not wanting to wake Wendy up. "But she looks all right." Her breathing was easier and her complexion looked better than it had when she'd left the Hub.

Jack had dropped Wendy off six hours ago, but despite his concerns, he had hesitated calling Ianto's flat because if she was asleep he hadn't wanted to wake her up, just to check in on her. He had told Bobby that she'd started looking better on the drive over.

Bobby couldn't help but admire the Captain for the way he honestly cared about his team, it wasn't the sort of attitude he was used to. Granted, nothing he'd really done when he was with House had put his own life at risk, but there was something innately good about working for someone who cared about the people under him. He smiled to himself at that thought. _I'm sure Jack would like more of us 'under him'._

For Bobby, the last six hours had been spent photographing, cataloguing and running tests the specimens from the beach, under the strictest safety protocols possible. So far neither he nor Liz had come up with anything useful.

They already knew that the energy signature wasn't like anything else anyone had seen before. What they couldn't figure out was where it originated, what exactly about the crystals produced it or caused it to discharge.

A preliminary examination of the crystals revealed enough evidence to back up the meteorite theory. They were made up of a number of unknown, definitely extraterritorial elements, some even Jack said he'd never seen before. It also seemed as if the initial theory about the larger the crystal the more energy it was capable of producing was incorrect as several of the smaller stones registered greater energy fields than some of the larger ones they'd pulled from the cave.

When Bobby had left, both Jack and Liz were on the phone making inquiries about anything else that might have crashed to earth around the same time frame, just in case there were more out there. Gwen had gone to help her friend from the police department and Ianto was scouring the internet for related news reports.

Bobby hung up with Jack and slipped back into the bedroom to gather his clothing as quickly and quietly as he could.

Wendy stirred as soon as he opened his suitcase.

"Sorry," he whispered over his shoulder at her, "Didn't mean to wake you."

"No… it wasn't you," she rolled over to look at him, brushing a few strands of hair out of her face. "I wasn't sleeping real well to begin with. Weird dreams," she explained.

He shot an inquisitive look over his shoulder.

She shook her head. "Nothing you'd understand. Probably nothing important, anyway," she smiled a thin, shy little smile and sat up, glancing at the clock. "You guys didn't need to leave me this long."

Bobby shrugged, "It was Jack's call." He shoved the last of his dirty jeans and shirts into his suit case and sat down on the floor facing her. "How's the head?" he asked.

"Better, thanks. I think I just needed a little sleep."

"Well…" he started to get up. "It'll only take me a couple of minutes to get the rest of my stuff together."

"You really don't have to leave."

"Don't worry about it."

"You were here first…".

"And you've known Ianto longer than I have," he cut her off. "That gives you dibs on his place. Besides, I really don't mind moving to the Hub for a couple of weeks."

She gave him a look that clearly indicated she didn't believe him.

"Ok, so it's not the Ritz," Bobby admitted with a grin. "But chances are, I'll be spending most of the next few days there anyway."

"We could _both_ stay here," she suggested. "I'll even take the couch if you like," she added with a smile. A second later it faded. "That is if you're… if you think you'd be comfortable being that close to me…" she faltered, her tone hesitant.

"Why would I mind being close to you?"

Wendy regarded him for a long moment. "You _really_ don't know, do you?"

"I'm guessing you're not human… am I right?"

She nodded, although she was no longer looking directly at him, preferring a spot on the wall just to the left of his head instead.

"So what are you?" he felt a rush of blood in his cheeks. "Erm…Sorry. That really didn't come out right. I'm not usually this…. I don't know, blunt I guess." He wasn't even sure what word he was looking for. "Chalk it up to lack of sleep."

"It's all right. And I guess it isn't a fair all things considered." She swallowed, but he missed the nervous look in her eyes.

"So?" he prompted when he realized she was hesitating.

"Lycanthrope," she said very, very quietly.

Bobby blinked, certain he must have heard that wrong. "You mean like _An American Werewolf in London_?" he asked in an incredulous, almost jocular tone. He regretted it immediately, wishing he'd had the time to read her file.

Wendy looked away, pulling her knees up under her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs. "Yeah. Just like that." The hurt in her tone was obvious. "I eat people for fun and talk to the rotting corpse of my dead best friend. Oh wait, my best friend is still alive." Her voice took on a sarcastic edge. "Guess that means I'm supposed to kill him in the middle of the night or something. Wonder what Jack will have to say about _that_."

"Wendy, it was a _joke_." He _really_ wished he'd had a chance to read her file.

"Well it wasn't funny."

"You're right." He got up and crossed the distance between them. "It wasn't. I'm sorry."

She pulled further into herself. "Forget it. I'll stay at the Hub for a while."

"Wendy…"

"This whole thing was probably a bad idea anyway. People… you… humans... You can't help the way you feel about us." She turned to face him, but still didn't meet his gaze. "It's in your nature to fear what you don't understand and hate what you fear."

"I don't hate you and I'm not afraid of you," he said, although he supposed that maybe he should be afraid, assuming that when she said lycanthrope she really did mean something like _An American Werewolf in London_. He took a seat on the end of the bed anyway. A week ago, he realized, he wouldn't even have believed her.

_But a week ago, my days didn't include Jack's pet pterodactyl, Weevils, spontaneous human combustion and giant alien bugs_, he reminded himself.

"I know I'm an idiot with a big mouth, but I'll make you a deal. You keep the bedroom, I'll take the couch. All right?"

She gave him a long, penetrating look. Bobby had no idea what she was searching for, but he sat there and let her look at him without trying to force a smile or anything else.

"I really didn't mean to be a jerk," he said at length.

"I know."

"So… ? Does that mean the apology's accepted?" he asked tentatively. When she didn't answer right away, he held out his hand, "What do you say? Flatmates?"

"You don't have anything to prove to me," she told him.

"Yes I do. We're on the same side and I was a jerk. I _am_ sorry," he told her again.

"I don't eat people." Her tone sounded defensive.

He just nodded. "I kinda figured that."

"You wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night with some slathering monster in your face."

"Jack trusts you. That's good enough for me."

"It's not like in the movies. I was born this way. I'm not… not some kind of… of animal."

"I would _never _have thought that," he promised her. "You're beautiful."

She looked away.

"What did I say wrong this time?"

She answered in a soft tone, "You've only seen half of me. It's the other skin humans fear. Hate. I know what men think of the way I look in this skin, but believe me when I say this is not the real me. Neither is the other, it's… it's _all_ me. All of it put together. You can't separate the two or have one without the other."

"So show me the other half," he suggested.

"I don't … it's not a game, Bobby. This isn't like show and tell at school." Her tone was scathing.

"I'm not suggesting that it is," he told her honestly. "Look, if you want to get technical as soon as you signed on with Torchwood I became your doctor. It's important for a doctor to understand his patients."

"The only person you have to worry _less _about than me is Jack. As long as the bullets aren't made of silver, I recover pretty quickly."

"That's good to know. But I'll bet there are a hundred alien neurotoxins that affect you the same way they affect the rest of us. Energy discharge weapons, that Atmos gas," he suggested. "Assuming you're as mortal as the rest of us, you're not invulnerable."

"No. I'm not invulnerable," she conceded. After another long moment, she told him to stand back.

As soon as he stood up, she slid out of the bed and pulled off her T-shirt.

He averted his eyes immediately.

"I thought you said you were a doctor."

"That doesn't mean I'm used to patients stripping right in front of me." He realized that he was sounding defensive.

"Would you pull the drapes?"

"You should have thought of _that_ before you started stripping," he muttered, although he walked over to the window and pulled the heavy curtains tight.

"This isn't the sort of thing…" she hesitated. "I'm _only_ doing this to prove to you that this is something I control, it doesn't control me." It sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince him. "I'm fully aware of everything that goes on around me, I remember everything. It's not like in books or movies," she repeated. "I'm _still _me. Only my body changes."

"All right," he nodded, taking a seat on the bed. He made a special point of looking at her face, because letting his gaze fall to any other part of her body was sure to garner a very unprofessional physical reaction. "You want me to trust you, so trust me."

"It's just, this isn't a show, it's not something to show off," she hesitated. "It's… it's not something for outsiders, people who don't understand. People who _can't _understand."

"Look, I'm not going to freak out on you, all right?"

Her gaze fell from his eyes to a spot on the floor between them. "You can't know that," she told him quietly.

"Jack and the others know all about this, right?" he asked, even though he knew the answer already. Jack had mentioned to him that Wendy was 'different' and that he needed to read her file and then come back to Jack's office if he had a problem with her, or the Captain's decision to hire her. Jack hadn't given him the impression that his decision was up for debate. In fact, Bobby got was the impression that if he did have a problem with Wendy, he had better get over quickly it if he wanted to keep his own job.

"They know," Wendy told him. "Ianto… He didn't always, but... but yes, they all know." Her tone was laden with emotion; Bobby couldn't name them all, but her uncertainty was obvious enough.

"They trust you," he reminded her. He knew by Jack's little speech that that was true. "And you must trust them. So why not give trusting me a shot?"

"It's not easy for us – me – to trust humans."

"I'm getting the impression we haven't given you much reason to."

She shrugged, "I can never go back to my kind. I don't have a choice but to learn to trust you."

Before he could say anything, she started changing and he found himself too awed to form words.

It was more elegant than anything Hollywood had ever conceived of. There was no splitting of skin or contorting of muscles, just a smooth transition from human into something truly extraordinary. He couldn't help the feeling of a shiver of fear at the sight of her standing there, seven feet of muscle and fur with sharp looking teeth and claws.

"Wow. You really weren't kidding." He wasn't aware he'd spoken until he heard the sound of his own voice. "Not that I didn't really believe you but… wow!" It wasn't his most eloquent moment.

Bobby forced his gaze up to her face again. When she met his gaze, he saw the same uncertain expression in her eyes and it struck him as ironic that she could probably rip him in half, but she was really afraid…

He remembered some of the cases he'd had over the years, people who were different in some way. It might be in the extreme, but this wasn't much different. _Except this isn't some birth defect, this is just who and what she is._

She leant forward onto all fours and he realized she'd changed again, becoming quadruped, and looking a little too much like the creature from the John Landis movie he'd referenced earlier. Just bigger.

Only she still wasn't a 'slathering monster.'

"Your eyes are the same," Bobby observed at length. He noticed her blink and wondered if his observation surprised her.

"And I'll be honest," he admitted to her as well as himself, "if I didn't know you and I met you looking like this in a dark alley – or out on the moors," he hoped the joke would be appreciated the second time around, "I would probably shit myself."

He had no doubt that she could rip a man's throat out without effort and he couldn't help the way his heart jumped when she took a step closer. She stopped.

"Sorry. Natural reaction," he apologized, presuming she could sense his fear because even if she wasn't an animal her senses had to be keener than any human's right now. Or maybe his expression was just giving him away.

"But I'm _not _freaking out," he promised. He wasn't sure which one of them he was trying to convince. "Wendy, I know you're still you. You're the shy, beautiful woman – or maybe person is a better word, I'm not sure – but whatever, you're someone Jack and the others trust. That really is good enough for me. I'm sorry I was an idiot earlier, but I'm hoping you cut me just a little slack here, because even if we did have a training manual, I doubt it would cover _this_," he tried for another joke, still not sure how it was going over.

Her expression was impossible to read, except for the continued look of uncertainty in her brown eyes.

He got up and took a few steps closer to her, as much to prove to her that he could do it as to prove it to himself. "I hope you'll take it the right way when I say I'm kinda glad you're on our side," he said with a smile.

He really hoped that the way her lip curled up just then was a smile in return not a grimace.

A moment later she looked human again. "Even in this skin, I'm stronger than you are," she told him in a soft tone. She took the T-shirt from his hands and slipped it back on over her head. "My senses are keener and please don't ever make the mistake of thinking I'm anything like you."

"All right." He shot her another smile, "But the next time I have to open a pickle jar, I'll know who to ask."

She laughed, despite the obvious trepidation she still seemed to be feeling.

"Come on, we should get back in before the rest of them start to wonder what's taking so long."

"I just need a few minutes to get dressed. And… thanks."

"You have nothing to thank me for."

"I'm not used to humans being so…willing to accept something so different."

"We have to be able trust each other because out there," he shrugged, gesturing towards the window and the city beyond. "Out there we're all we've really got."

"I can see why Jack likes you."

He gave her a quizzical look.

"He told me I could trust you. I wasn't sure I believed him."

………………………………………………………………..

"I was starting to get worried about you kids," Jack greeted them with a wry smile as the cog door rolled aside. "When you left I could have sworn I told you not to do anything I wouldn't do," he winked at Bobby.

"There's the problem," Bobby returned his wink with a smile. "There _isn't_ anything you wouldn't do."

The Captain chuckled. "Have a nice nap?" he asked Wendy. She seemed more relaxed around Bobby than she'd been earlier in the afternoon. Hopefully that meant they'd had a chance to talk.

"I feel better, thanks. I really…" she blinked a moment, seeming off balance.

Bobby reached out a hand to steady her, "Are you all right?"

Ianto looked up from his station, "Wendy?" he asked.

"I'm fine… I just…" She frowned. "I think the headache is coming back is all."

"Come on," Bobby took her by the waist, "Let's get you into the medical bay and have a look at you."

"I'm sure it's nothing."

Jack gave her a look. "Do I have to make everything an order with you?"

Wendy submitted to being led down to the medical area. All three of them accompanied her.

"What's going on?" Liz looked up from her computer as they came down the steps.

"Her headache's back," Bobby explained to Liz.

"It's not as bad as it was before," she told them. "I'm really sure it's nothing… Jack?" She turned to look at him. "What's that sound?"

"What sound?" Ianto was the first to ask her.

"It's… high pitched… Maybe it's out of your range… But it can't be by much. It's… " her eyes fluttered back in their sockets and her knees gave way…

**as always, thank you for the reviews! They are much appreciated!**


	14. Chapter 13

**A/N: **many, many thanks to those who are sticking with this and/or continuing to review!! Everyone is appreciated. Yes, regarding the title of this one, I ended up on a Star Trek kick… the only bad thing about that is for three days I haven't been able to get The Firm's "Star Trekkin'" out of my head!

Hope you all enjoy. Please reveiw if you do ;-) We're almost to the end.

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen: It's Life Jack, But Not ****a****s We Know It**

……………………………………………..

**Cardiff, Wales (UK):**

Shapes and colours drifted by, slowly at first and then faster. Under her skin, the muscles stretched, filling with blood. The sound of her own heartbeat throbbed in her ears.

Scent and sound mingled together, damp green earth, cool, dark water. Ice against fur and flesh.

Searing, blinding pain… Ozone and fire… An ear shattering scream that she only barely recognized as her own voice.

Wendy sat bolt upright in the strange bed, her breath coming fast and hard in ragged gulps as if she'd just run a long way. The room was silent but for the sound of her heart still beating in her ears.

Her chest constricted in panic as strange smells washed over her, overwhelming everything, even the pounding beating of her heart. She tried to get her bearings, but all she could make out were unfamiliar shapes in the darkness and smell of coffee and spice. Deep heat… Cinnamon and musk. Fire. Sex.

A flush of heat overtook her cheeks as she realized the scents weren't unfamiliar after all. It was Ianto and Jack. She was in their bed.

Wendy closed her eyes and took a slow easy breath, trying to calm her heartbeat. She knew she was safe here, she was with friends, people who cared about her, but every muscle in her body ached with irrational fear and loneliness.

She took another deep breath and let it out slowly, counting to ten as she exhaled. She was all right. Jack was a good man, Ianto was her best friend…

_But I may never look at the two of them the same way again, _she thought.

She slid out of their bed and realized she was barefooted. That had to be Ianto's doing. It made her smile to picture him pulling off her shoes before putting her in his bed. He could be so anal… She blushed again.

Wendy padded across the cool floor to the bathroom. The smooth chill of the floor felt good against her bare feet, like ice easing away the fire of a hazy memory that niggled at the back of her brain anyway, refusing to go away.

She shook herself and turned on the tap, letting the water run cold.

Beyond the hard smooth walls she knew there was earth and stone. She_ felt_ it calling to her, singing the comforts of the moist Mother Earth. She shook herself again. Her senses shouldn't reach that far, not through concrete and steel. Even in the worse throws of puberty, with every sense being assaulted by hormones, she hadn't been as acutely aware of the Damp Earth as this.

She cupped her hands and splashed cold water on her face, but it didn't help. She had to steady herself against the sink as her knees buckled under the weight of strange memories pulling themselves up to the surface of her conscious mind.

Shapes and colours… Dark damp earth… Water… Cold and black … Heat and spice…

Fumbling, she pushed the bathroom door shut, but the hot smell didn't go away. It burned, searing through her from the inside out.

"Wendy?" Ianto's voice cut through the pain. "Wen? Are you all right?" he asked, finding her on the bathroom floor, shaking. He knelt down next to her but she scrambled away from his touch. "Wendy! What's the matter?"

She pulled further away, bringing her knees up protectively in front of her. "I'm sorry," she said to the hurt look in his blue eyes. "It's not you, Yan. It is you," she corrected, sobbing, "but it isn't. I can't explain it. There's… there's fire, everywhere. Everything _burns_. I can't make it stop."

"Wendy, calm down. It's going to be all right…"

"I have to get out of here. I need air… No! _**Don't**__ touch me!_ " She pulled back when he reached for her again. "Please… I'm sorry," she added to his pained expression. "Your scent is everything that hurts." She pushing past him, more roughly than she meant to but she needed to get out of the room. She needed air…

"Wendy? Wendy!" he followed her out into the bedroom.

"Ianto?" Jack called from up above.

She followed the sound of his voice, knowing it would lead her out.

The rungs of the ladder stung against her palms and bare feet as painfully as if they were made of silver even though she knew they were iron. She pulled herself up into the office.

"Wendy…?" One look at her as she propelled herself up the ladder was all Jack needed to understand the panic he'd heard in Ianto's voice. "What's going on?" He tried to catch her, but her expression was one of warning. "Wendy, take it easy," He backed away, both hands raised. "Talk to me…"

"I can't. I have to get out." Her gaze darted around the room wildly, as if looking for door, like she didn't know where she was even though she'd been in his office several times before.

"Hey… _hey!" _Jack manoeuvred himself between her and the rest of the Hub. "Let's talk…"

"Let me out!"

"Wendy!" Ianto snapped at her, emerging from the hole that served as a door to their quarters.

She whirled around and glared at him at the same time as Jack shot him a look of his own. If she lost control, _he_ could survive it, but the younger man didn't stand a chance.

"Look at _me_," Jack coaxed her, desperate to draw her attention away from Ianto. "Talk to me. Tell me what I can do to help you."

When she faced him again, her expression a mix of fear and pain. It reminded him of their first encounter. "Please, Jack, I just need to get out of here. _Please."_ Her knees buckled again. "Don't touch me!" She pulled away as he reached for her. When Ianto tried, she backed frantically way from him, too. "They're pulling me apart! _Make it stop! _Jack… please…"

He caught her as she slipped into unconsciousness, scooping her up into his arms.

……………………………………………..

Bobby and Liz both looked up as Jack carried Wendy, still unconscious, down the steps into the medical bay with Ianto right behind him; both men wore worried expressions.

"What happened?" Liz asked the question first, pulling her arms out of the thick 'gloves' of the quarantine unit.

"I don't know." Jack laid Wendy down on the table. "She passed out in my office."

"What happened just before she lost consciousness?" Bobby asked him, a deep frown working its way across his face. He pulled off his gloves and placed his hand on her cheek. Her skin was cool to the touch. He checked her pupils but they seemed normal. He shot an expectant look at Jack and Ianto.

"She said she needed to get out," the Captain told him. "She was disoriented, almost… manic," he shrugged, not sure it was really the right word to describe the frantic state she'd been in when she came up the ladder.

"She seemed to be… afraid of me, like she didn't know where she was." Instead of stuffing his hands into his pockets, he snaked one arm around Ianto's waist and pulled him close. It wasn't much in the way of comfort, but it was the best he had to offer.

"I found her shaking on the bathroom floor," Ianto added, his tone betraying how helpless he felt. "She said everything burned and pulled away from me, too. She wasn't making any sense."

Bobby turned to Liz, "You examined her before. Maybe you should be doing this." He knew Wendy was his responsibility, but if Jack had any objections, he kept them to himself.

………………………………………………

In a landscape of sound and colour, understanding began to filter through the pain.

The burning subsided and only the longing remained, the need to return to the cool dark place… The cold water… _Home…_ The Whole.

She understood the bonds of kinship because her own heart ached with the need to be with own kind again. She needed that family as much as she needed air, as much as she needed freedom.

But they cast her out. She broke the law and they cast her out. There was no turning back, no changing their minds. She would _never _run with her kin again, never see them or speak to them, not in this lifetime or any other.

And so she understood. Through the colour and the light and the dark, and the cool, and the heat, and the pain, she understood that sometimes it was better to die than to be separated from The Whole.

……………………………………………..

"Wendy?" Liz's voice filtered through the haze of strange colour.

She blinked in confusion, uncertain where she was or what was happening. Slowly the haze seemed to lift from her senses… Liz… Ianto… Bobby… Jack. She found the Captain's face in the dark and met his gaze. "You have to stop," she told him, surprised at the sound of her own voice, weak it and ragged. "Please, Jack. You _have _to stop it."

He frowned, clearly not understanding. "Stop what?"

"Stop the killing," she begged him.

Ianto looked at her, just as confused as Jack was, "Wendy, what are you talking about? We're not killing anybody," the Welshman said.

She shook her head, "You don't understand. You_ are_."

"Who am I supposed to be killing?" Jack asked her.

Despite their protests, Wendy pulled herself up off the table, accepting Bobby's assistance when her knees began to give out again.

"Wendy?" the Captain inquired.

"You _don't_ understand," she told him.

She pulled away from Bobby and moved toward the quarantine unit, peering in. Liz had broken several of the specimens apart, probably taking samples. Before anyone could stop her, she lifted the lid and reached in.

Instinctively, Jack pushed Ianto behind him and grabbed Bobby by the arm, shoving him towards the steps. "Get out," he told them, motioning for Liz to go too.

Wendy picked up one of the crystals.

"Wendy," Jack said her name again. The stone in her hand began to pulse with weak green light. "Put that down and let's talk."

She looked up at him without seeming to actually see him. The pulse of light grew stronger.

Ianto swallowed the cold lump of fear in his throat, refusing to be leave, even when Jack told them to get out a second time.

The older man shot Liz a desperate look. She nodded and with Bobby's help, dragged the protesting Welshman up the steps. "Lock the place down," he added to Liz.

Jack took a step closer to Wendy. "Can you hear me?" he asked, keeping his voice calm.

"It's better to die than to live apart from your own kind," she told him softly, still seeming to be looking through him rather than at him.

"Wendy, look at me… _look_ at me." He had to work hard to ignore the sound of Ianto's increasingly anxious tone above them. "Wendy," he took another step forward. "You have friends here. People who love you," he reminded her. "You're not alone. I _promise _you, you you'll never be alone."

She blinked, suddenly seeming to see him again. "I know. I trust you."

"All right, good." He was standing right in front of her by then, but he was afraid to make any sudden moves. She was almost as deadly as the crystal in her hands. "Put that down and let's talk…"

She took a step back away from him. "No. No, you don't understand."

"Ok. So talk to me. Tell me. Help me understand."

"It's like… like when a bee stings someone, to protect the hive. The bee dies. It's better to die protecting what's important to you than to lose it, than to live apart."

He frowned, not understanding at all.

"Listen to me, please," she begged him. "You have to listen."

"I'm listening," he assured her. So far the all crystal seemed to be doing was glowing soflty green; it didn't seem to be hurting her – or anyone else. "You said something about bees dying to protect the hive, right?"

"That's the only thing I can compare them to."

"Them?"

She nodded to the stone in her hands.

His frown deepened, "What are you trying to say? That that's some kind of… of life form?" His tone was sceptical.

"Not the way we define it. Not the way we understand it. But I can feel it. _I _understand it."

"Why you?"

"My people are more in tune with the patterns of life than humans. It's… it's what set me off so badly about you. You're not a part of the web of life."

He blinked, unsettled by the comment. This wasn't the time to consider a statement like that or the way it made her look at him with such incredible sadness in her eyes, but it made him stop and pause anyway.

"So I'm not a part of…some kind of 'web of life', but _that thing_ is?" he wanted to know.

"It's… sentient, Jack. It's _aware_."

"It killed three people," he reminded her.

"They didn't have a choice. Separated from The Whole, from their own kind… it _hurt_. I understand that kind of hurting. You know how desperate I was before I understood what you were really about here," she reminded him. "I would rather have died than live locked up like that.."

He gave her a long, measured look. "You really understand that thing?"

"On a very basic level, yes."

"What about those three dead people in my morgue?" he asked again, settling his hands on his hips.

"Jack, the amount of energy it took to kill those people killed them, too," she nodded at the stone in her hands. "The ones who tried to kill you in the cave are all dead. It's like bees protecting the hive. They died trying to protect The Whole… or trying to find a way to communicate."

"The specimens we found at Miller's and Warren's…"

Wendy shook her head. "There's enough residual energy to trace, but they're as dead as Miller and Warren and the other guy. Use that thing of yours, see for yourself," she nodded at his wrist strap. "This one's still alive," she glanced at the two stones still in the containment unit, "they're dead. When Liz pulled them apart… " she glanced up at the scientist. It wasn't Liz's fault, she didn't know… she couldn't have. None of them did.

"It's not going to try and kill me again, is it?" he asked, still sceptical.

"No."

"And you passing out?" he inquired, as he flipped open the control panel on his wrist strap and began taking readings. It didn't register as any form of life he'd ever heard of. "Was that just their way of saying 'hello'?" He was satisfied that the one in her hands was giving off stronger readings than the two in the containment unit, but that was all he was sure about.

"They were desperate for a way to communicate. They weren't trying to hurt me it just... just to get through, to be heard." She struggled to find the right words. "It was like sensory overload. They don't think the way we do. They don't communicate in words, just… feelings. It's all a jumble of light and colour and scents. It was too much all at once, but I feel _fine_ now."

He regarded her a long moment. Just because it didn't _look_ like she'd been possessed by some alien life form… "You're sure?" he asked.

"Liz can check me over if it'll make you happy."

"As a matter of fact it would."

Wendy nodded. "What about these?" she asked of the crystal. "What are you going to do with them?"

"They're too dangerous…"

"They're only dangerous if they feel threatened," she said a little too defensively for him.

"Why don't we talk about it later?"

"This isn't some kind of invasion. They didn't even come to Earth voluntarily."

"How did they get here?"

"The best I can piece together is that that meteorite used to be a part of some larger body, an asteroid or a maybe a small planet, I don't know. I smell green… feel cold… water… then fire… burning. Darkness. Then the ocean. Our ocean." She shrugged. "They fell here. They didn't attack the first people who found them, but then they were pulled apart, separated from each other. It hurt."

He considered a moment before proposing an solution. "What if I can find one big room to put them all into, together? Do they need anything special?"

"They don't sustain themselves the way we do, they don't need food or water or… or much of anything except each other. As long as they're together," she looked down at the stone in her hands, truly understanding.

All she needed was her own kin, but she would never see them again.

Jack gave her another long look, "You really do understand that… " he began in a soft tone, only he couldn't find the right words. Torchwood may have been set up to hunt down and eliminate alien threats – to claim alien technology by whatever means necessary – but that wasn't who _he_ was.

Wendy's smile was enough, though. He knew she understood what he was having a hard time saying.

"You're one of the good guys, Jack." She told him. "I trust you. All of you," she added, glancing up at Liz, Bobby and Ianto.

………………………………………………………

"To your first day at Torchwood," Bobby raised his wineglass towards Wendy. They were back at Ianto's flat after a very long day. A very long _week_.

Smiling, she met his glass with her own, with small clink. "And my new flatmate," she told him.

He laughed, "I'll drink to that." At the moment, he would drink to almost anything.

They both drank quite a bit of the wine. Bobby topped up both their glasses. "I think this is the first time I've gotten back here before midnight all week," he murmured, glancing at the clock.

"You know you really don't have to give up the bedroom to me…"

He shook his head, cutting her off, "What kind of a gentleman would I be to ask you to sleep on the couch?"

"As long as you're sure you really don't mind."

"I _really_ don't. Besides, with any luck I'll be able to find my own place soon, so it's just for a while, right? And it seems like a comfortable couch," he pushed at the cushions. "I've definitely slept on worse."

"I thought you were some kind of rich doctor or something."

He scoffed, "Not all doctors are rich." He drank some more wine. "I guess… I was at one point. Then my father disowned me. Or maybe we disowned each other," he shrugged.

She gave him an inquisitive look, silently inviting him to continue if he wanted to.

"It's a long story." He drained his glass and refilled it. Wendy didn't press the issue, but he realized he felt like talking to her. "My dad ran out on my mom and me when I was a kid. She was an alcoholic and he couldn't stand living that way."

"He didn't take you with him?"

"Why would he? I was just a kid, I would have been too much of a burden on him. He was a doctor too," he explained, settling back into the sofa. "My dad never had much time for us even when he was around."

"I have never understood parents who abandon their children."

Bobby shrugged again, but didn't say more on the subject.

Wendy rearranged herself into a more comfortable position next to him. "What happened? Do you mind me asking?"

He shook his head, getting a little more comfortable himself. "The last time I saw my father was a few months before he died. That was a couple of years ago now, I guess. He didn't even bother telling me he was dying. He told my boss instead. He didn't tell me either."

"This infamous sounding Dr. House you've talked about?" she took a big sip of her wine.

Bobby chucked, "That would be the one. It doesn't matter, though," he continued in a more sombre tone. "I wouldn't have gone to my father's funeral anyway. He cut me out of his will a long time ago. That's not why I wouldn't have gone, though."

"I know. I mean… I understand." She blushed a little. "I don't mean to say I think I know you that well."

He shrugged, "I don't have anything to hide. Erm…not that I meant… " he floundered.

Wendy shook her head, cutting him off. "I know you didn't mean that towards me."

Still embarrassed, Bobby reached for the wine bottle to refill their glasses. They both noticed that the bottle was getting empty quickly. There were two more chilling in the fridge, however.

They were all under strict orders to relax and not come in until lunch tomorrow, even Gwen who had missed the excitement at the Hub. Jack had sent her back to Barry to coordinate with the local police who were fielding calls from people afraid that every little thing they'd picked up on the beach might be radioactive.

"If we're going to keep drinking like this," Wendy suggested, "We should probably get something to eat."

"Good idea. Does anybody around here deliver this late?"

"A couple of places, but if you don't mind the walk there's a fantastic Italian restaurant not too far from here. If we hurry we can get there before they close and get take away."

"Italian it is," he hauled himself to his feet and offered her his hand.

……………………………………………………

It was just past two o'clock in the morning when Alison Cameron got off a plane at Cardiff International airport and found a taxi.

She knew she would never be able to sleep, but it was too early to do more than check into a hotel, take a shower try to figure out what she was going to say to Robert when she found him.


	15. Chapter 14

Wow! Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter! I REALLY appreaciate them. Hope you continue to enjoy. Please let me know if you do.

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**Chapter Fifteen: Finding Robert Chase**

……………………………………………..

**Cardiff, Wales (UK):**

After the previous day's excitement, no one at the Police Station took any special notice of the blond woman who walked in at nine o'clock in the morning.

Alison looked around finally spotting an officer sitting at a desk. She walked over, "Excuse me?" She asked in a hesitant tone.

The officer looked up, a bored expression on his face.

"I… well," she adjusted the strap of her purse nervously. "I was wondering if you could help me?"

"What's the matter, then?" he asked.

"I'm looking for my… my friend," she said, then changed her mind. "My boyfriend, I mean," she lied, hoping that a girlfriend would be taken more seriously than just a friend. "He moved to Cardiff a little over a week ago and I haven't heard from him," she lied again.

If she told them Robert had called to say everything was fine, they'd say the same thing Foreman had, that everything _was_ fine and she was being silly. But just because Robert _said_ he was fine didn't mean that he really was fine. In fact, she was certain that he wasn't fine. Nothing about their conversation had seemed right to her.

"And I take it you were expecting to hear from him?" the officer inquired in a sceptical tone.

"Of course. He hasn't been in touch with anyone," she tried to sound calm.

She pulled a picture of her and Robert from last year's Christmas party out of her purse and handed it over. "His name is Dr. Robert Chase. He came here to take a job with some Torchwood Institute."

A half dozen or so officers who were in earshot stopped what they were doing and looked over as soon as they heard the word 'Torchwood'. Two of them actually moved closer to the desk so they could hear better.

Alison blinked, startled that her words had gotten that kind of reaction from the officers. Now more than ever she wanted to know what this Torchwood was and why Robert had sounded so strange over the phone the other day.

The officer at the desk handed the picture of her and Robert over to another officer and turned his attention back to the Alison. "Torchwood?" he asked. "You're _sure _he said Torchwood?"

"Yes. I saw the letter they sent him myself," she insisted. It was becoming apparent that they didn't believe her.

"Didn't Detective Swanson call them in to something recently?" asked one of the officers who had come over to hear what was going on.

"I think so," said another.

"Oi! Janine!" a third called to a female officer standing across the room. "You were on the scene last week with Swanson, weren't you? Aberdine Street, wasn't it? That charred corpse?"

"Right out of the bloody X-Files," the female officer replied, joining the knot of officers who had gathered around Alison. "I've never seen anything so freaky in all my life. Why?"

The man who had called her over handed her the picture. "You see this guy there?" he asked.

Janine nodded, "He came in with the all mighty Torchwood. Why, what's going on?"

"She's his girlfriend," said the guy who had called him over.

"Lucky you," Janine droned, handing the photo back to her.

Alison felt more confused than ever. "I don't understand. Who or what is Torchwood?"

The officers looked at each other and then at her.

Finally one of them gave her a friendly seeming smile, "They handle all the weird stuff, love," he told her.

"Weird stuff?"

"You know… spontaneous human combustion. Aliens," he winked.

The others chuckled. Several pointed out that there was no such things as aliens; several more disagreed.

"Here," the officer at the desk handed her a business card. "That's Detective Swanson's number. Maybe she can help you find your boyfriend."

"Good luck," Janine added, with a sympathetic smile.

Alison stayed just long enough to overhear part of a conversation about Jack Harkness and a breaking and entering incident from a few nights ago…

An hour later, she met with Detective Swanson. An hour after that, she received a phone call in her hotel room from a very polite man with a Welsh accent.

…………………………………………………**.**

Wearing jeans and trainers that were stained with blood and bug-guts, a clean, plain white T-shirt and his one remaining clean suit jacket, Bobby walked into the coffee shop where Ianto had told him to meet Alison.

Although he hadn't talked to Jack personally, he had heard him in the background when Ianto called and he knew the Captain wasn't happy. He wasn't happy either.

Then he saw her, sitting there, staring into her cup and he couldn't help the way his heart still skipped several beats. She looked up and saw him and smiled and suddenly couldn't breathe properly either.

With his guts tying themselves into knots, he shoved his hands into his pockets and forced himself to walk at a normal pace over towards her table. Everything inside hurt. But she'd made her choices and he'd made his and just because she was here didn't mean she even wanted him back. He didn't know what it meant.

Her grin broadened as he got to the table. "Robert."

"Awful long way to come for a cup of coffee," he teased.

She laughed, "You know what they say, some things are worth travelling for."

He shrugged. Neither knew quite what to say or do next, so they just stood there, staring at each other, feeling awkward.

Alison broke the silence first, "You're looking good," she told him.

He scoffed, "I haven't had a chance to do laundry since I got here and I drank way too much wine last night."

"Special occasion?"

"Celebrating closing the case. Our burn victims."

She just smiled without pressing him for more information.

"Let me get a cup of coffee," he said. "You need anything while I'm up there?" he noticed that her cup was almost empty.

"I'm fine. Thanks," she shot him a timid smile. He returned it before heading up to the counter to order something.

A few moments later he returned to the table and sat down. He pulled the lid off his coffee to let it cool. "Alison, what are you doing here?" He decided to ask the obvious question and get it out of the way.

"I…" she hesitated. "I was worried about you, Robert."

He gave her an incredulous look. "Worried about me?"

"I know you said you were fine but I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong."

He blew across the hot liquid in his cup, trying to give himself a few minutes to think. "Everything's fine, Al. I've got a great job, a new flatmate and… and everything's fine," he repeated, not sure who really trying to convince, her or himself.

He was fine, he did love his job and Wendy was a great flatmate. He even had a lunch date with a twenty-something girl from Barry. He blew across his coffee again. He doubted mentioning Rhianna to Alison would make either of them feel better.

She just looked at him with big brown eyes and reached across the table for his hand. "Robert…"

He shook his head, pulling it away, "You should go back home."

"I just got here… Come on, you're not even going to volunteer to show me the sights?" she coaxed in a hopeful tone.

He couldn't meet her gaze, preferring to alternate between looking into his cup and a picture on the wall to the right of her head. "There's not much to see. Besides, my work schedule is pretty hectic."

"I'm here for three days." She shifted so his gaze fell on her instead of the picture. "Maybe we could go out to dinner or something?"

"I really don't think that's a good idea under the circumstances."

She gave him a hurt look, "What circumstances?"

"Alison, you broke up with me, remember?"

"We broke up before and were still friends."

"And we're still friends now," he told her, taking an experimental sip of his coffee. It was finally cool enough to drink. "I just don't think that going out to dinner is a good idea any more."

She frowned, "Why not?"

"Because this time it's different."

She looked down into her empty cup. "I realize I made some mistakes, Robert."

"Don't. Please. Just leave it. Go home."

She ran her hands up and down her cup a moment before meeting his gaze again. "Do I at least get to meet this new boss of yours?"

"Alison…"

"Robert, I'm here for three days. At least say you'll spend a little bit of time with me?" she asked. "If you can't make plans for dinner, how about lunch tomorrow? Or even breakfast," she suggested.

He regarded her a long moment. He knew that look on her face, she wasn't going to give up easily. "All right, fine. We're supposed to go bowling tonight. _If_ nothing comes up at work. If you'd like to come and have a drink with us, I'm sure you'd be welcome."

"Sounds like fun," she nodded.

He wrote down the name of the place they were supposed to meet on a napkin wondering how much he was going to regret this later. He knew exactly how welcome she was really going to be.

"Eight o'clock," he told her. "But… look, I've really got to go."

"I'll see you later," she smiled up at him and he felt his heart melting all over again.

Bobby leant over and kissed her cheek. "It is good to see you," he told her honestly.

"It's good to see you too. I've missed you."

"Me too." He left quickly, before he said anything else.

…………………………………………………**.**

Jack's scowl came as no surprise.

"I just need some time to figure out what I'm going to say," Bobby told him. "Besides, you don't know Alison like I do. She's not going to just leave it alone and go back home."

The older man leant back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest. "There's always Retcon."

Bobby gave him an exasperated look, "So she'd go home and forget the trip? All that means is she'd be back again in a couple of months."

"You realize that the job's been filled," Jack told him.

"I don't want her to stay. I don't even know if she wants to stay. I just need some time to figure this out."

"Fine. You can figure it out while you get on that backlog of autopsies," Jack handed him a stack of folders. "I want you up to speed before Liz leaves next week."

Taking the dismissal for what it was, Bobby tucked the stack of folders under his arm and headed to the medical bay, sorely regretting the amount of wine he'd had to drink last night.

Wendy cast him a sympathetic smile from her desk and he returned it; Werewolves, it seemed, were also susceptible to hangovers.


	16. Chapter 16

This is it, the last chapter!

**Quick Note: **I realize that in Journey's End, Gwen is still using Cooper, but since I started writing her as 'Williams', I'm going to chose continuity over cannon... although I have to admit, I like the sound of Gwen Cooper better.

**And as always THANK YOU for the wonderful reviews!**

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**Chapter Sixteen: Torchwood **

……………………………………………..

**Cardiff, Wales (UK):**

Alison took a deep breath and let it out again before opening the door and stepping into the bowling alley. She looked around, but it wasn't hard to find the loudest group in the place.

She'd been thinking all day about what she wanted to say to Robert. Now all she had to do was say it… _And find a chance to say it,_ she thought, looking over the group assembled around him. They seemed to be hovering – almost protectively – making her wonder just what he'd told them about their breakup.

Forcing a smile, Alison walked over, "Hi," she managed to get the word out without her voice cracking.

Robert didn't come up immediately like she'd expected him to. Instead a dark haired man with blue eyes and an odd sense of fashion stood up, putting himself between her and the rest of the group.

"Alison Cameron," he greeted her by name.

"You're American," she was startled by his accent.

His flashed a wry smirk, "So I've been told. Captain Jack Harkness," he held out his hand. "I understand you caused quite a stir with the police this morning," he added. His tone was friendly, but something in his eyes made her pause before answering.

"You're a hard man to find," she said at last, accepting his hand. It was calloused, but he kept his grip light. She glanced from him to Robert and back again. Robert was just as hard to find as this guy was and she wanted to know why.

"I prefer it that way," Jack responded to her comment.

Alison couldn't help feeling nervous under the gaze of those intense blue eyes, but she still felt as if she needed to say something to fill up the growing gap in the conversation. "So… what _is _Torchwood?" she asked.

"You're looking at it," his tone was brusque.

"Oh enough, Jack," said a woman of fifty something with greying auburn hair. She stepped up to the front of the group, "I'm Liz Shaw," she introduced herself with a warm smile. "And by the way, I am _not_ Torchwood." She gave Jack a scornful look that Alison didn't recognize to be playful.

He returned it, folding his arms across his chest. He stepped aside just enough for Alison to slip past him and join the rest of the group, who were gathered around a pair of tables.

"It's a pleasure to meet you… all of you…" She hesitated, glancing back up at Jack Harkness again. He seemed to fill up the room in a way House only wished he could.

The brunette with too much eyeliner stood up and held out her hand, "Gwen Williams." Her tone was friendly, just like her smile. "And this is my husband Rhys," she nodded towards the big, loud man Alison had heard across the bowling alley when she first came in.

"Resident Torchwood Widow," Rhys scoffed with a good natured smile, shaking her hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Ianto Jones, Ma'am," said the sweet faced young man in a black T-shirt and jeans. "And this is Wendy Shutten," he introduced the dark skinned woman who looked like as if she'd raided Stevie Nicks' wardrobe.

Alison took her to be his girlfriend, given the way he'd been sitting with his arm around her.

"It's nice to meet you." Wendy's smile was shy, but her grip was firm.

The seven of them seemed as different as night and day from one another, but she couldn't help noticing how comfortable they seemed together – even the man who had described himself as the Torchwood Widow. It made Alison feel awkward and out of place.

"Well," Ianto seemed to notice the uncomfortable moment as well, "can I get you something from the bar?" he offered to Alison.

"I… erm… Whatever everyone else is drinking is fine, thank you." Alison put down her purse and tried to force a smile.

She was aware that they were all watching her every move. It was even worse than the police station had been this morning.

Ianto gave an inquisitive look around to the rest of them; most nodded to him, as if they knew he already knew what they drank.

"You know what I'm drinking, mate," Rhys spoke aloud, holding up his half finished beer.

Ianto nodded and turned to Jack. "Your usual?" he asked.

"You know what I like and how I like it." The Captain flashed a lascivious grin that made Alison blush on the young man's behalf.

"I'd better give you a hand," Gwen offered to Ianto. "The rest of you decide teams while we're gone, eh? And make it fair this time," she added in Jack's direction.

"What are you trying to say?" he asked, a mischievous look playing across his face.

"You know _exactly_ what I'm saying," Gwen told him, poking at his chest with her index finger.

Jack's attempt at innocence didn't fool anyone. He shrugged. "So do you want to draw straws or something?"

"He cheats," Ianto reminded them.

"I do not!" Jack's indignation sounded real to Alison, but the others just laughed at him. "Fine," Jack glared, although anyone who knew him would have known that he was having difficult time not laughing, too. "You kids divide up on your own however you want. Alison, do you need to rent shoes?" He asked, glancing down at the heels she'd shown up in.

"I don't really play…."

"Oh come on," Rhys said to her. "You can be on our team. Us civilians gotta stick together here."

"I… well…" She looked around at the rest of them. "All right, I guess, but I'm not very good."

"That's all right," Gwen assured her. "Neither is Rhys."

He glared at her; Gwen just grinned while several of the others chuckled softly.

As Gwen and Ianto headed for the bar, Jack stood up and held out his hand to Alison to escort her up to the reception counter where she could get shoes.

Bobby shot him a look; the Captain returned it innocently.

"Contrary to popular belief, I don't bite," Jack gave the rest of his team a look before returning his gaze to the blond woman. "Unless of course you're into that sort of thing," he winked at her.

She blushed bright pink.

"Jack," Bobby's tone was one of warning.

"It's fine," Alison told him, placing her hand into the other man's. He hauled her easily to her feet and crooked his arm. His current behaviour seemed at odds with his initial chilly attitude towards her, but she accepted. "So…?" she asked as they neared the shoe rental.

"So…?" Jack asked right back.

"Why are you so hard to find?"

"Like I said, I prefer it that way. What size shoe do you wear?"

"Eight…"

He gave her a look, then glanced around. Spying who he needed, he hollered Ianto's name across the bowling alley.

The young man jogged over, leaving an unhappy looking Gwen to manage their drinks alone.

"You bellowed, Sir," he said, deadpan.

"Shoe size," the Captain replied simply, nodding at Alison.

The younger man gave him an exasperated look. "This goes a bit beyond the call of duty, don't you think?"

"I thought last night went beyond the call of duty," Jack retorted with another one of those lascivious grins that made Alison blush even though it wasn't directed at her.

"What size do you wear?" Ianto asked her.

"An eight…"

"Right." He paused a moment then leant across the counter, "Can I see a ladies' five and a half, please?" he said to the young woman working the shoe rental.

"Five and a half?" Alison gave him an incredulous look.

"Trust me," said Ianto. He took the shoes from the girl behind the counter and passed them over to Alison.

Jack paid for her to join their game while Ianto went back to the bar where Gwen was waiting for him. She wasn't about to try carrying five bottles of beer and two glasses of wine and Jack's water all by herself.

Alison didn't miss the way the Captain watched the other man walk away.

Noticing her watching him stare after his Welshman, Jack shot another one of the grins that he knew would make her blush. "You should see him in a suit," he said, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

……………………………………………….…..

"So which team am I playing for tonight?" Jack asked with a wink as he and Alison returned to the others. He'd helped her pick out a ball on their way back.

Ianto handed him his water. "As long as you've no objections, you're with me tonight." A playful smile teased at the corners of his mouth.

Jack grinned right back, raising his eyebrows a little in the Welshman's direction. "I think I can handle playing with you… as long as you think you're up for it." No one missed the expression on his face as he said that. "Who's playing with us?"

Wendy and Liz both nodded, confirming that they were also on Jack and Ianto's team.

"Ooh, this could be fun!" The Captain slid his arms around their shoulders. "And you said I'd never get you," he added to Liz, giving her cheek a quick peck.

"You are truly incorrigible, Jack," she replied.

Still feeling awkward, Alison took a seat near Bobby, Gwen and Rhys. "Guess I'm with you guys." She didn't quite look at any of them.

Even divided up into two groups, there was still a sense of wholeness about them, a kind of closeness she had never experienced back in New Jersey. She glanced over at Jack, wondering what kind of person he was to inspire the close-knit feeling she got from the others. The only thing House had ever inspired on his team was distrust and back stabbing.

Gwen seemed to pick up on her uneasiness, even if she couldn't know the cause of it. "Don't worry, Alison. Wendy doesn't play much, either," she assured the American woman with a friendly smile. "And we're just playing for fun."

"Says you," Rhys scoffed. "Losing team picks up the bar tab." He took a swig of his beer.

Gwen gave his arm a smack with the back of her hand, "It's really just for fun," she promised Alison. "Jack usually pays the tab."

He shot her a look, "Not after the way you guys have been treating me tonight."

Ianto rolled his eyes at the Captain. "Bobby and I already flipped a coin to see who goes first. We're up."

Alison blinked over at Robert when the Welshman called him 'Bobby'.

He just shrugged. She slid closer to him, nervously fidgeting with her bottle.

"Do you want something else?" Bobby asked her quietly.

"No. No this is fine." She forced a smile and glanced over at the other team, especially Jack. On the surface he was flirtatious to the point of being lecherous, but she got the feeling there must be more to him than that.

He was confident, that much was obvious. He was certainly protective of his team and despite his unusual nature, they all seemed to like him.

Gwen leant across the table then and told her that in her absence, they'd decided that the least experienced players should go first. Alison nodded and watched Ianto walk with Wendy up to the lane.

"Remember to relax," he told her in patient tone. "Just throw the ball like I showed you earlier." He positioned himself behind her, one hand on her waist and the other guiding her arm.

"Hey, Ianto," Jack called, "think you can give _me _a refresher course when it's my turn?"

The younger man grinned over his shoulder at him, "I think that can be arranged."

Jack returned the grin and drank his water, clearly admiring the view.

Alison leant in closer to Bobby. "So… Those two…?" she asked softly.

"Hmm?" he looked up from his beer.

"Are they…?"

He glanced up towards the lane. "Jack and Ianto?" he asked. "You mean it isn't obvious?"

Alison blinked. She'd been asking about Ianto and Wendy, wondering why either of them would put up with Ianto's boss hitting on him like that. "Oh... Yeah... I guess." She watched as Wendy threw a gutter ball.

"Sorry, guys," Wendy apologized to her team.

"No worries," Ianto assured her.

"I guess that means I'm up, huh?" Alison asked nervously, glancing at Bobby and the other two people at her table.

"I'm sure you'll be fantastic," Gwen said in an encouraging tone.

Alison grimaced and got to her feet.

"Need some help?" Bobby offered.

She wished she could interpret his expression, but it was like it had been this morning, clouded over and reserved. She accepted his offer anyway. At least she wouldn't be standing up there alone when she made a complete idiot of herself.

"Just relax," he told her as they walked up to the lane. "Remember, it's all in the wrist." He shot Jack a look as if daring the older man to make a comment.

"What?" the Captain retorted with a look of innocence that no one who knew him would ever believe.

"Just keep it to yourself, Jack."

Ianto snickered and Jack glared at him. "Remember who signs your pay checks, Mister."

The younger man drank his beer with a shrug of his shoulders, still laughing.

Alison turned to the Bobby, lowering her voice. "So… 'Bobby'?" she asked him. "What prompted that?"

He just shrugged like he had before and showed her again how to hold the ball. "All you have to do is release it nice and easy. Pull back and let go." He stepped back as she threw the ball. It went straight into the gutter.

"That's oh and oh," Ianto said needlessly. "Nice try, though," he added in Alison's direction. "I'm sure you'll catch on by the end of the game."

"Sorry," Alison apologized to her teammates anyway.

"Don't worry about it," Rhys grinned over at her. "Wait 'til you see how bad Harkness over there throws it. We've got this game in the bag."

"Maybe _you'd_ like to give me that refresher," Jack suggested with a toothy grin, raising his eyebrows suggestively at the other man.

Both Gwen and Ianto laughed a little too loudly for their respective partners' tastes; Alison continued to blush. Bobby just shook his head and drank more beer. It was going to be a _long _night.

Liz and Gwen were next up, followed by Jack who was accompanied by Ianto. Ianto placed his hand around the older man's waist, moving in _very_ close, erasing any doubts Alison may have been had who Ianto was really with. Both men were clearly enjoying themselves a little too much.

"Oi, sometime this century!" Rhys hollered, grinning. "Some of us don't have forever you know."

"I'm feeling out of practice here," Jack shot back with a merry grin.

Ianto just flashed a sly smile and stepped in closer, whispering something in Jack's ear before moving out of the way so the older man could throw the ball. Jack knocked over four out of ten pins, which was hardly a personal best.

"You're supposed to say things like that to me _after_ I throw the ball," the Captain told him in a sharp tone.

Ianto just smirked.

………………………..…………………………….

Jack paid the tab like usual, although he kept threatening to take it out of Ianto's pay for the way the younger man kept distracting him.

When he got back from the bar, Ianto helped him with his coat; he slid his arm around the younger man's waist and looked around at the others. "See you kids in the morning. Don't do anything we wouldn't do," he added with a wry grin.

"_Is _there anything you wouldn't do?" Rhys asked him.

Jack seemed to ponder the thought for a long, long moment while the others giggled and exchanged glances. "Right. Ianto. Let's go home," he winked at the younger man. "I think we need to 'field test' that question."

"Why do you _always_ have to get him started?" Ianto asked Rhys in an exasperated tone. His eyes, however, betrayed nothing but good humour.

Jack turned to Liz before they made their exit, "Can we give you a lift back to your hotel?" he asked.

"Thank you," she accepted with a warm smile.

The three of them exchanged last good nights with everyone and headed out. Alison would have sworn she heard Jack saying something to Liz about how there always room for one more in naked hide and seek… But Liz had to be at least twenty years older than Jack.

_I must've heard wrong,_ Alison convinced herself. Jack was probably just one of those flirty gay guys who thought it was cute to hit on older women. She still couldn't figure out what about him inspired these people, but clearly there was something she was missing, there had to be. Otherwise someone would have sued him for sexual harassment by now…

"Anybody interested in a pizza?" Rhys' voice drew her out of her thoughts.

"Oooh, I'm starved," Gwen agreed, shooting an inquisitive look towards the others.

"Sounds good," said Wendy. "Bobby?"

He glanced at Alison, "I think… we've still got some stuff to talk about. Next time."

Gwen nodded, "All right… looks like it's just the three of us, then. Bobby, see you in the morning. Alison," she added with an amiable smile in the American's direction.

"Good night. Thanks," Alison returned the smile; she liked Gwen.

Rhys seemed all right, too. He was big and loud and friendly, not the kind of man she would ever go out with, but he and Gwen seemed happy together. Alison envied that in a way she'd never envied a couple before.

She waited until they were alone in the parking lot to look up at Robert. "So… ?"

"So…?" He echoed.

"You're right about us needing to talk. There some things I need to say to you."

"Alison…"

"No, let me finish. I found the ring," she told him, knowing that if she didn't say it now, she would lose her nerve. "I know I shouldn't have been going through your drawers, but I was worried about you. I'm sorry."

He shook his head, "It doesn't matter. The ring was a mistake."

She closed her eyes trying not to react to how much those words stung. "It _wasn't _a mistake." She couldn't keep the hurt out of her voice. "I just wish you would have told me before you left."

"Alison, listen to me." He placed his hands gently on her shoulders, "It _was_ a mistake and I'm sorry. I should never have expected you to just drop your whole life and follow me here."

She swallowed, trying to clear the lump from her throat. "I'm the one who made the mistake. What I said… I love you. I just… I didn't want to be the reason you didn't come here."

"I know."

She blinked at him in surprise.

"All right, I didn't know, but I guessed that might be it. You made the right choice, Al."

"How can you say that?"

"I thought I knew what I was getting into when I took this job. I should _never_ have asked you to come with me, though."

"Why?"

"Alison, most of my patients are dead by the time they get to me. I spent my afternoon clearing out a backlog of autopsies. You care about people too much. Even if the job were still open, you'd hate it."

"I'm sure I could find something else. There are plenty of hospitals in Cardiff and it can't be _that _difficult to get my license over here. I could even go into private practice."

"You can't stay here," he told her, even as the knives in his gut twisted in harder.

"Robert… _All_ I'm asking for is a chance to make this work. I made a mistake. I'm sorry. I was _wrong._ I don't know how else to say it. Just give me six months – give _us _six months – and then if it isn't working, I'll go back to New Jersey."

He looked away for a long moment. "I can't keep doing this with you. I'm sorry," his voice was ragged.

"Doing what?"

"This. Us." He shifted his gaze back to her face, her eyes. "Alison, you and I… we've done this before. You broke it off with me because I said I liked you. Because I said I had feelings for you… "

"But we got back together," she reminded him.

"Yeah we did. And then you broke up with me again."

"Robert…"

"If you had asked me to stay in New Jersey, I would have," he told her. "And maybe you had the best of intentions when you… When you told me you didn't love me," saying the words hurt, even though he believed her that it had been a lie. "But some things can't be taken back. Even though I still love you," he admitted. "I can't keep going back and forth like this. If you really wanted to be with me, we wouldn't be standing here having this conversation. If you really wanted to be with me, I wouldn't have had to chase you down in the first place. I don't know what you want, but I hope you find it."

He reached out and wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Go back home. Get on with your life. Let me get on with mine. I'll always love you. We'll always be friends. But there never really was an 'us', there was just me chasing after you and you letting me."

Her breath caught in her throat and she spent several long moments not knowing what to say. Finally, "You're really serious," was all she could make come out.

"Yeah. I am."

"I love you…" she said hopefully.

"I know."

Alison blinked up at him, still not believing that he wanted her to leave. "I… I guess this is goodbye."

"I guess it is."


	17. Chapter 17

**Epilogue: Moving On**

……………………………………………………………….

After seeing Alison safely into a cab, Bobby didn't feel like going back to the flat, but he didn't have anywhere else he wanted to go, either.

He knew going to a pub would only get him in trouble; he didn't know Cardiff well enough to stumble his way home drunk. 

_Besides, after last night, I should probably give my liver a break,_ he thought.

He was surprised when he opened up the door of Ianto's flat to be greeted by the scent of fresh brewed coffee.

Wendy looked up from the sofa. She'd been reading a book by the light of several candles on the coffee table.

"You'll ruin your eyes doing that," he told her with a bit of a smile.

She smiled right back at him, "I used to do this all the time as a kid. Well, usually it was a torch under the covers," she shrugged. "I brought some pizza home for you. It's on a plate in the microwave."

"I don't think I can eat. Thanks." He did help himself to a cup of coffee, though.

"You feel like talking?"

He shook his head, kicked off his shoes and sat down next to her on the sofa. Wendy rearranged herself a little so she was leaning up against him and went back to her book.

"What is that, anyway?" he asked of the paperback.

"Anne Bishop," she showed him the cover.

"Ah," was all he could say of the picture of an open-shirted young man with long black hair.

Wendy laughed, "Don't judge a book by its cover, Bobby." She raised an eyebrow at him, driving home the point.

He blushed and she laughed harder. "It's probably not your cup of tea, but it's not some tawdry romance, either."

"Nothing wrong with tawdry romances," he countered, slipping into a slight more comfortable position with one arm around her shoulders.

Wendy grinned up at him. "That sour look on your face says otherwise."

He shrugged and moved a pillow into his lap so she could get better support on her back.

"So what do you like to read, Dr. Chase?"

"I dunno. Journals mostly, I guess."

She shook her head sadly and flipped back to the first page from which she began reading aloud, occasionally stealing a sip of his coffee as she went along.

…

* * *

**A/N:**

This was especially written for several people who expressed the desire for Bobby and Wendy to end up together... I know there were a few of you (and honestly, it wasn't my original intent, but so many people spoke out against Cameron in the beginning that that's the direction I decided to go in. Sorry to the Cameron fans...)

_The Anne Bishop book in question is called Sebastian. I've just started reading it myself, but her Black Jewels series was superb and Sebastian promises to be the same._


End file.
